The Metamorphosis (1915) - Franz Kafka
Related: 1915 - metamorphoses - Franz Kafka - alienation - existentalism - 20th century literature - fantastic literature - absurd - surreal
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
Description
The Metamorphosis (in German, Die Verwandlung) is a novella ( a mix between a short story and a novel) written by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915, and arguably the most famous of his works along with the longer works The Trial and The Castle. The basic idea of the story is that a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect-like creature. Many interpret this as a highly symbolic tale dealing with the absurdity of human existence, leading critics to frequently associate it with existentialism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis [Jul 2005]Highbrow literature as horror fiction
Some stories in highbrow literature could arguably be regarded as horror fiction: examples include Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) and In the Penal Colony (In der Strafkolonie). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_fiction#Early_horror_fiction [Jul 2005]
Excerpt
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
"What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table - Samsa was a travelling salesman - and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense", he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before. --Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1915) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/metam10h.htm [Jul 2005]
see also: 1915 - high - horror fiction - Metamorphoses - Franz Kafka
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