The metamorphosis : and other stories /
Translated by Joyce Crick ; with an introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson
- Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2009
When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin. 'With a bewildering blend of the everyday and the fantastical, Kafka thus begins his most famous short story, The Metamorphosis. A commercial traveller is unexpectedly freed from his dreary job by his inexplicable transformation into an insect, which drastically alters his relationship with his family. Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to be called Punishments. The Judgement also concerns family tensions, when a power struggle between father and son ends with father passing an enigmatic judgement on the helpless son. The third story, In the Penal Colony, explores questions of power, justice, punishment, and the meaning of pain played out in a colonial setting.
9780199238552
German literature--Experience of illness Short stories--Fiction