About the work
"Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis") is a novella by Franz Kafka, written in Prague in November/December 1912. It first appeared in October 1915 in the journal "Die weißen Blätter" and was published the same year as a standalone book by Kurt Wolff Verlag. Stage versions have since brought the prose text to theatres in various adaptations, though the novella itself never had a theatrical premiere.
Plot
Travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a giant insect and can no longer carry out his job. While his family initially tries to cope with him, he is increasingly confined, neglected and perceived as a burden. Gregor's physical and psychological decline across three chapters ends with his death, after which the family turns, relieved, toward a new future.
Cultural significance
The novella is regarded as the longest complete prose work Kafka published in his lifetime and as one of his best-known and most widely interpreted works, inspiring readings ranging from psychoanalytic accounts of father-son conflict to sociological studies of alienation in modern working life. It continues to shape literature, music and the visual arts, and lent its title's central image to the adjective "kafkaesque".