his family, especially by his sister Ottla – a situation eerily close to the plot ofThe Metamorphosis.  In any event, the ‘matter-of-fact’ tone employed in his writing was almost certainly a product of his own personal history.

The tone of The Metamorphosis was probably also a product of the subject matter itself: a young professional awakens after a night of “troubled dreams” to discover he has changed into an insect.  As Kafka’s story describes it, the story’s protagonist, Gregor, before reconciling himself to the fact of his transformation, first reflects on the travails of his existence:

“One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.” . . .

"’Oh, God’, he thought, what a strenuous career it is that I've chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go to Hell!’”

Parallels between Kafka’s life and that of his protagonist are undeniable.  The matter-of-fact tone is a reflection of that parallel.  His work with insurance companies, especially with the Italian company with which he got his start in the business, was stressful and unsatisfying, and escape from that existence, as well as with the financial burdens associated with having to take care of a family (in the case of Gregor, not Kafka himself) probably influenced the transformation of Gregor from human working a stressful job to insect incapable of gainful employment or, because of its horrific appearance, of even leaving its bedroom.  The tone of the story allows for the fact of the metamorphosis to warrant barely a mention.  The story is not about the physical act of transformation; it is about what occurs following that transformation, in effect, the deterioration of Gregor’s physical state and, more importantly, of his relationship with his family.  His mother can no longer stand to look at him and his sister, Grete, undertakes a metamorphosis herself from doting sister to bitter critic.  Physically and emotionally exhausted from the burden of caring for her brother while working at her job – Gregor’s inability to continue to support the family financially due to his condition has compelled the rest of the family to step up their responsibilities for providing for each other – Grete reaches her breaking point after Gregor inadvertently scares away the boarders the family had brought in to ease the financial pressure:

"Father, Mother", said his sister, hitting the table with her hand as introduction, "we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong."

Kafka succeeds in not letting the fact of the transformation of Gregor into an insect become a “major issue” because the act of undergoing that transformation is not the point of the story.  The metamorphosis of the family as a result of this change in family structure, with the main bread-winner no longer providing financial support, is what The Metamorphosis is all about.

Kafka opens his story as follows:

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

Kakfa begins in media res, the middle of the story, as the change into a cockroach has already occurred. This pulls the reader into the action without preamble while the simple language makes it easy to enter into these events. We are not supposed to be concerned with the whys of how he became a cockroach, but to deal, as Gregor must, with the reality of the situation he finds himself in. This is a story not about science but about soul.

Since the story is told at this point from his point of view, his preoccupations become our preoccupations. He is less concerned as he wakes up with being a cockroach than with hating his job as a traveling salesman and with having overslept so badly that he will be late for work. His matter-of-fact response to his change helps us to accept it and suggests that he already considers himself somewhat of a metaphoric insect. It also suggests that his job is so awful that being a cockroach, at least initially, pales in comparison.

It lends a sense of realism that would be difficult to capture otherwise. Without this point of view, many readers would be left fighting to suspend their disbelief, which would detract from the underlying themes of the story. By presenting Gregor's transformation as fact, Kafka is forcing the readers to accept the change, just as Gregor and his family did. It also allows the audience to connect more closely to the events of the story: How would we respond in the same situation?

On the other hand, it also lets us know that we will be entering a world unlike our own, which sets the stage for Kafka's abundant use of irony and black comedy. Even while we are accepting Gregor's new form, we are taking part in a world that doesn't exist, thus we recognize the black humor in the events more readily.