As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
From what I understand of this book when it was written it came as something of a shock to the world as nothing had ever before been written like this. The Metamorphosis seems to have no real story line, very few twists or tricks and yet I couldn't put it down. I found Gregor to be an interesting character who seemed to value family and how they felt more than anything else, he also seemed to take to the whole turning into a giant insect thing very well.
Besides Gregor I found Greta to be one of the more interesting characters as she, unlike Mr and Mrs Samsa seemed to value the idea that family is more important than anything else in most situations, she also seemed more humane than the Mr and Mrs. I had mixed feelings about Mr and Mrs Samsa, they didn't develop as characters and I could barely understand what they thought of Gregor or how they were dealing with the situation. But perhaps when your son turns into a giant bug there isn't any understandable way to deal with it.
Side Note: none of the actions of any of the characters caused me any strong emotions, I neither cried nor laughed.
I didn't enjoy the minimal amount of dialect within this story, for me that tends to slow a book down considerably however in context of The Metamorphosis that lack of dialect does make sense and Kafka may have lost what the story was meant to be if he had added more dialect.
I don't really understand what this story was about and like I didn't know how to start the review I am also pretty clueless on how to finish it. Someone I know mentioned she had studied this in uni or perhaps college, either way she told me that a theme she believe The Metamorphosis covered was whether we were human even if in physical appearance we weren't. I considered that idea throughout reading this book and when I finished it, I had my conclusion. We are, humanity is within us, it's our personalities, our thoughts and memories. If you think about that while reading The Metamorphosis you might agree or you might not.
I'd rate this 6/10 but would defiantly hand it on to a friend or foe as I still think it is something that should be read in life.
Book Published 1915
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