again in the life of a commercial traveler, a manner of living that renders impossible any
sense of continuity.” The sense of reality depends upon continuity, upon duration. After
all, awakening as an insect is not much different from awakening as Napoleon or George
Washington. (I knew a man who awoke as the Emperor of Brazil.) On the other hand,
the isolation, and the strangeness, of so-called reality—this is, after all, something which
constantly characterizes the artist, the genius, the discoverer. The Samsa family around
the fantastic insect is nothing else than mediocrity surrounding genius.
PART ONE
I am now going to speak of structure. Part one of the story can be divided into seven
scenes or segments:
Scene I: Gregor wakes up. He is alone. He has already been changed into a beetle, but
his human impressions still mingle with his new insect instincts. The scene ends with the
introduction of the still human time element.
“He looked at the alarm clock ticking on the chest. Good Lord! he thought. It was halfpast
six and the hands were quietly moving on, it was even past the half- hour, it was
getting on toward a quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not gone off? … The next train
went at seven o’clock; to catch that he would need to hurry like mad and his samples
weren’t even packed up, and he himself wasn’t feeling particularly fresh and active. And
even if he did catch the train he wouldn’t avoid a row with the boss, since the firm’s
messenger would have been waiting for the five o’clock train and would have long since
reported his failure to turn up.” He thinks of reporting that he is sick, but concludes that
the insurance doctor would certify him as perfectly healthy. “And would he be so wrong
on this occasion? Gregor really felt quite well, apart from a drowsiness that was utterly
superfluous after such a long sleep, and he was even unusually hungry.”
Scene II: The three members of the family knock on his doors and talk to him from,
respectively, the hallway, the living room, and his sister’s room. Gregor’s family are his
parasites, exploiting him, eating him out from the inside. This is his beetle itch in human
terms. The pathetic urge to find some protection from betrayal, cruelty, and filth is the
factor that went to form his carapace, his beetle shell, which at first seems hard and
secure but eventually is seen to be as vulnerable as his sick human flesh and spirit had
been. Who of the three parasites—father, mother, sister—is the most cruel? At first it
would seem to be the father. But he is not the worst: it is the sister, whom Gregor loves
most but who betrays him beginning with the furniture scene in the middle of the story.
In the second scene the door theme begins: “there came a cautious tap at the door behind
the head of his bed. ‘Gregor,’ said a voice—it was his mother’s—’it’s a quarter to seven.
Hadn’t you a train to catch?’ That gentle voice! Gregor had a shock as he heard his own
voice answering hers, unmistakably his own voice, it was true, but with a persistent
pitiful squeaky undertone…. ‘Yes, yes, thank you, Mother, I’m getting up now.’ The
wooden door between the m must have kept the change in his voice from being noticeable
outside…. Yet this brief exchange of words had made the other members of the family
aware that Gregor was still in the house, as they had not expected, and at one of the side
doors his father was already knocking gently, yet with his fist. ‘Gregor! Gregor!’ he
called, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ And after a while he called again in a deeper voice:
‘Gregor! Gregor!’ At the other side door his sister was saying in a low, plaintive tone:
‘Gregor? Aren’t you well? Do you need anything?’ He answered them both at once: ‘I’m
just ready,’ and did his best to make his voice sound as normal as possible by enunciating
the words very clearly and leaving long pauses between them. So his father went back to
his breakfast, but his sister whispered: ‘Gregor, open the door, do.’ However, he was not