Metamorphosis

KAFKA’S STORY is the tale of GREGOR SAMSA, a travelling salesman in fabrics, who wakes up one morning after disturbing dreams to find himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect-like creature. The story then traces the interaction of GREGOR and his family as he slowly starves to death for want of the right kind of sustenance. His death brings relief and rejoicing for his family, and releases them to a new, fresher, more positive and independent life without him.

Before his transformation, GREGOR had assumed the dutiful responsibility of providing for his parents and his sister when his father’s business had collapsed five years earlier. To keep things together, he had pushed himself into a job he detested and got up at four each morning, rain or shine, to travel the country pedalling his cloth samples when his real desire was for artistic expression, successful human relationships and emotional fulfilment. GREGOR’S transformation into a hideous and awkward parasitic creature is a cry for help, but his craving for understanding and fulfilment is not met.

Imprisoned in his room, his protective shell penetrated by his father’s attack, he wastes away and finally dies from the great wound in his back. The brutish charlady sweeps up his emaciated carcass and throws it out with the rubbish. His family can live again and, for the first time in months, they leave their shadowy apartment together as a family and venture into the sunny world beyond to celebrate their freedom from a dreadful burden.