Close Read: The Metamorphosis

Note

Use the checklist for Story Elements to make annotations as you perform a close reading of The
Metamorphosis.

Checklist for Story Elements

Noticing how literary elements develop and relate to each other can help you determine the significant ideas
and themes in fictional narratives and drama. To analyze the impact of an author’s choices about how to
develop and relate literary elements, consider the following questions:

How does the narrator’s voice shape the story? How does a neutral or humorous narrative tone affect your
understanding of characters and events?

How are the characters’ lives and conflicts related to the setting?

How does the author use contrast or juxtaposition to convey meaning? What is the impact of a situation or
character that seems out of place?

How do characters, setting, and plot work together to convey abstract ideas or suggest possible themes?

Read

1 One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had
been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his
head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the
blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin
in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.

2 ‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only
somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, on which an
unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spread out (Samsa was a traveling salesman) hung the
picture which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It
was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the
viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm disappeared.

3 Gregor’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down
 on the metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy. ‘Why don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer
and forget all this foolishness,’ he thought. But this was entirely impractical, for he was used to sleeping on
his right side, and in his present state he couldn’t get himself into this position. No matter how hard he
threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled again onto his back. He must have tried it a hundred
times, closing his eyes, so that he would not have to see the wriggling legs, and gave up only when he
began to feel a light, dull pain in his side which he had never felt before.

4 ‘O God,’ he thought, ‘what a demanding job I’ve chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade
are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the
problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly
changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!’ He felt a slight itching
on the top of his abdomen. He slowly pushed himself on his back closer to the bed post so that he could
lift his head more easily, found the itchy part, which was entirely covered with small white spots (he did not
know what to make of them), and wanted to feel the place with a leg. But he retracted it immediately, for
the contact felt like a cold shower all over him.

5 He slid back again into his earlier position. ‘This getting up early,’ he thought, ‘makes a man quite idiotic. A
man must have his sleep. Other traveling salesmen live like harem women. For instance, when I come
back to the inn during the course of the morning to write up the necessary orders, these gentlemen are
just sitting down to breakfast. If I were to try that with my boss, I’d be thrown out on the spot. Still, who
knows whether that mightn’t be really good for me. If I didn’t hold back for my parents’ sake, I would’ve
quit ages ago. I would’ve gone to the boss and told him just what I think from the bottom of my heart. He
would’ve fallen right off his desk! How weird it is to sit up at the desk and talk down to the employee from
way up there. The boss has trouble hearing, so the employee has to step up quite close to him. Anyway, I
haven’t completely given up that hope yet. Once I’ve got together the money to pay off the parents’ debt
to him—that should take another five or six years—I’ll do it for sure. Then I’ll make the big break. In any
case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.’

6 And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking away by the chest of drawers. ‘Good God,’ he thought. It was
half past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was past the half hour, already nearly quarter to.
Could the alarm have failed to ring? One saw from the bed that it was properly set for four o’clock.
Certainly it had rung. Yes, but was it possible to sleep through this noise that made the furniture shake?
Now, it’s true he’d not slept quietly, but evidently he’d slept all the more deeply. Still, what should he do
now? The next train left at seven o’clock. To catch that one, he would have to go in a mad rush. The
sample collection wasn’t packed up yet, and he really didn’t feel particularly fresh and active. And even if
he caught the train, there was no avoiding a blow up with the boss, because the firm’s errand boy
would’ve waited for the five o’clock train and reported the news of his absence long ago. He was the
boss’s minion, without backbone or intelligence. Well then, what if he reported in sick? But that would be
extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because during his five years’ service Gregor hadn’t been sick
even once. The boss would certainly come with the doctor from the health insurance company and would
reproach his parents for their lazy son and cut short all objections with the insurance doctor’s comments;
 for him everyone was completely healthy but really lazy about work. And besides, would the doctor in this
case be totally wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor in fact felt
quite well and even had a really strong appetite.

7 As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste, without being able to make the decision to get out of
bed (the alarm clock was indicating exactly quarter to seven) there was a cautious knock on the door by
the head of the bed.

8 ‘Gregor,’ a voice called (it was his mother!) ‘it’s quarter to seven. Don’t you want to be on your way?’ The
soft voice! Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answering. It was clearly and unmistakably his
earlier voice, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly painful squeaking which left the
words positively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them in the reverberation, so that one didn’t
know if one had heard correctly. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explain everything, but in these
circumstances he confined himself to saying, ‘Yes, yes, thank you mother. I’m getting up right away.’
Because of the wooden door the change in Gregor’s voice was not really noticeable outside, so his mother
calmed down with this explanation and shuffled off. However, as a result of the short conversation the
other family members became aware of the fact that Gregor was unexpectedly still at home, and already
his father was knocking on one side door, weakly but with his fist. ‘Gregor, Gregor,’ he called out, ‘what’s
going on?’ And after a short while he urged him on again in a deeper voice. ‘Gregor!’ Gregor!’ At the other
side door, however, his sister knocked lightly. ‘Gregor? Are you all right? Do you need anything?’ Gregor
directed answers in both directions, ‘I’ll be ready right away.’ He made an effort with the most careful
articulation and by inserting long pauses between the individual words to remove everything remarkable
from his voice. His father turned back to his breakfast. However, the sister whispered, ‘Gregor, open the
door, I beg you.’ Gregor had no intention of opening the door, but congratulated himself on his precaution,
acquired from traveling, of locking all doors during the night, even at home.

9 First he wanted to stand up quietly and undisturbed, get dressed, above all have breakfast, and only then
consider further action, for (he noticed this clearly) by thinking things over in bed he would not reach a
reasonable conclusion. He remembered that he had already often felt a light pain or other in bed, perhaps
the result of an awkward lying position, which later turned out to be purely imaginary when he stood up,
and he was eager to see how his present fantasies would gradually dissipate. That the change in his voice
was nothing other than the onset of a real chill, an occupational illness of commercial travelers, of that he
had not the slightest doubt.

10 It was very easy to throw aside the blanket. He needed only to push himself up a little, and it fell by itself.
But to continue was difficult, particularly because he was so unusually wide. He needed arms and hands to
push himself upright. Instead of these, however, he had only many small limbs which were incessantly
moving with very different motions and which, in addition, he was unable to control. If he wanted to bend
one of them, then it was the first to extend itself, and if he finally succeeded doing with this limb what he
wanted, in the meantime all the others, as if left free, moved around in an excessively painful agitation. ‘But
I must not stay in bed uselessly,’ said Gregor to himself.
11 At first he wanted to get of the bed with the lower part of his body, but this lower part (which he
incidentally had not yet looked at and which he also couldn’t picture clearly) proved itself too difficult to
move. The attempt went so slowly. When, having become almost frantic, he finally hurled himself forward
with all his force and without thinking, he chose his direction incorrectly, and he hit the lower bedpost hard.
The violent pain he felt revealed to him that the lower part of his body was at the moment probably the
most sensitive.

12 Thus, he tried to get his upper body out of the bed first and turned his head carefully toward the edge of
the bed. He managed to do this easily, and in spite of its width and weight his body mass at last slowly
followed the turning of his head. But as he finally raised his head outside the bed in the open air, he
became anxious about moving forward any further in this manner, for if he allowed himself eventually to fall
by this process, it would take a miracle to prevent his head from getting injured. And at all costs he must
not lose consciousness right now. He preferred to remain in bed.

13 However, after a similar effort, while he lay there again sighing as before and once again saw his small
limbs fighting one another, if anything worse than before, and didn’t see any chance of imposing quiet and
order on this arbitrary movement, he told himself again that he couldn’t possibly remain in bed and that it
might be the most reasonable thing to sacrifice everything if there was even the slightest hope of getting
himself out of bed in the process. At the same moment, however, he didn’t forget to remind himself from
time to time of the fact that calm (indeed the calmest) reflection might be better than the most confused
decisions. At such moments, he directed his gaze as precisely as he could toward the window, but
unfortunately there was little confident cheer to be had from a glance at the morning mist, which
concealed even the other side of the narrow street. ‘It’s already seven o’clock’ he told himself at the latest
striking of the alarm clock, ‘already seven o’clock and still such a fog.’ And for a little while longer he lay
quietly with weak breathing, as if perhaps waiting for normal and natural conditions to re-emerge out of
the complete stillness.

Annotations