Gregor Samsa, a hardworking traveling salesman and the sole breadwinner of his family, wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. Franz Kafka's most famous story opens on this impossible fact and never explains it, turning instead to the ordinary, excruciating consequences: how Gregor's body no longer obeys him, how his voice becomes unintelligible, and how the family he has supported recoils from the creature he has become.
Confined to his room, Gregor clings to his human thoughts even as his instincts and appetites change. His sister Grete, at first the only one willing to care for him, gradually wearies of the burden, and the household's tolerance curdles into resentment. What begins as a grotesque accident becomes a study of alienation, dependence, and the conditional nature of love within a family.
Written in 1915, The Metamorphosis remains a cornerstone of modern literature: a spare, unsettling parable read as an allegory of illness, obsolescence, and the isolation of the individual in a world that values only what he can provide.