The Metamorphosis

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Kafka’s work often deals with systems of authority and power that have a bewildering effect on his characters, and The Metamorphosis is no different. What systems have power over you, and what options would you have if they turned against you?

Teaching Suggestion: Even students with no prior reading of Kafka’s work might have heard the term Kafkaesque; this question opens discussion on that idea. Getting readers to think about the various governmental, economic, and social structures that have a presence in their lives will help them to grapple with the novella’s themes of The Effects of Social Alienation and Work as a Dehumanizing Force.

• The New York Times article “The Essence of ‘Kafkaesque’” by Ivana Edwards contains a thorough and lucid explication of Kafka’s outsize influence on our understanding of modern life, which has only grown in the interim between this article’s writing and the present day. (Subscription may be required.)

2. Gregor Samsa’s changed body leads to a series of catastrophes for him that are absurd in their scope and tenor but grounded in real anxieties about health, the body, and our ability to be productive members of family and society.