The Metamorphosis

O ne morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

H e 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.

“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.


G regor’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, but in his present state he could not get himself into this position.

N o matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled onto his back again. 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.

I've been a fan of Franz Kafka's work for some time now. When I came across this tragic little bug in my bathroom last night, legs whirling frantically in the air, I couldn't help but think of Kafka's particularly famous short story, The Metamorphosis.

I watched this bug struggle to right himself for about ten minutes, contemplating the sheer cruelty of his design, before shooting a few grainy pictures and tossing him outside (wrapped in kleenex of course).

He certainly would have related to the charming, yet pathetic Gregor from Kafka's odd little tale (which you can read a full online translation here if you so wish).

Also, just on the note of this story, one of my favourite artistic interpretations was done by the lovely artist Jana Sterbak in 1995, in a video entitled Condition. In a haunting translation of what I consider the cyclical nature of suffering, her video is fascinating for those familiar with Kafka's work in particular. You can take a look at it here (Or you may just find it weird, that's cool too).