The Metamorphosis (
German: Die Verwandlung) is a
novella written by
Franz Kafka which was first published in
1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and struggles to adjust to his new condition. The novella has been recreated, referenced, or parodied in various popular culture media.
Film
There are numerous film versions of the story, including:
In the 2006 animated film Flushed Away, a stove falls through the floor of a house to show an annoyed cockroach sitting behind it, reading a French translation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.[11]
The 1967 film The Producers, along with its
stage musical adaptation, feature a scene in which Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom search for the worst possible play they can mount in order to commit investment fraud. Max reads the first sentence of The Metamorphosis aloud, and promptly declares that it is too good.
The 2022 film Kuthiraivaal, takes some inspirations of The Metamorphosis with the protagonist who wakes up with a horse tail and not by becoming a cockroach.
Print
Jacob M. Appel's Scouting for the Reaper contains a telling of the novella in which a rabbi attempts to arrange a "proper Jewish burial" for Gregor.[12]
American cartoonist
Robert Crumb drew a comic adaptation of the novella, which is included in the 1993 book Introducing Kafka, an illustrated biography of Kafka also known as Kafka for Beginners, R. Crumb's Kafka, or simply Kafka.
American comic artist
Peter Kuper illustrated a graphic novel adaptation, first published by the
Crown Publishing Group in 2003,[13] and then again in 2004.[14] The graphic novel has been translated into Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, and Hebrew[15]
Marc Estrin's debut surrealist novel, Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa (2002),[16] "resurrects Kafka's half-cockroach Gregor character"[17] vis-à-vis the world between 1915 and 1945.
East Press published a
manga version of the story in 2008 as part of their
Manga de Dokuha line.[18]
The Meowmorphosis was released in 2011 by
Quirk Books as part of the Quirk Classics series; a 'mash-up' retelling by Coleridge Cook, where Gregor Samsa wakes up as an adorable kitten, instead of a hideous insect.[19]
A sequel "
Samsa in Love" was written as a short story by
Haruki Murakami in his 2017 book Men Without Women. It features Gregor Samsa, who had turned back into a human (at the start of the story, he had just woken up after presumably dreaming of being a bug), and his encounter with a hunchbacked locksmith apprentice.
The 1992 children's novel Shoebag by
Marijane Meaker (writing as Mary James) depicts the experiences of a young cockroach transformed into a human boy and struggling to cope with human life. The story also features an appearance by a young man named Gregor Samsa who gives the protagonist tips on how to navigate school and social situations, as well as a process by which he may turn himself back into a cockroach and resume his old life.
2007's Kockroach, by
William Lashner under the name "Tyler Knox", inverts the premise by transforming a cockroach into a human; Lashner has stated that The Metamorphosis is "the obvious starting point for" Kockroach, and that his choice of pseudonym was made in honor of Josef K (of Kafka's The Trial).[20]
During the events of
Marvel Comics' Deadpool Killustrated the titular assassin pays a visit to Gregor Samsa's apartment and shoots him to death, his beetle-like corpse being found by
Sherlock Holmes.
Another stage adaptation was performed in 2006 as a co-production between the
Icelandic company
Vesturport and the
Lyric Hammersmith, adapted and directed by Gísli Örn Garðarsson and
David Farr, with a music soundtrack performed by
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.[23] It was also performed at the
Sydney Theatre Company as part of a world tour in 2009[24] and returned to the Lyric Hammersmith in January 2013, starring Garðarsson as Gregor Samsa.
Music
In 1975,
The Rolling Stones released a compilation album titled Metamorphosis. The album cover alludes to the book with each member of the bands heads being replaced with a bug.
in 1988,
Philip Glass composed and performed a five movement arrangement called Metamorphosis. It refers to and was inspired by Kafka's novel and has been used for recorded readings and stage performances of the material.
In 2001, Athens, Georgia-based rock band
Widespread Panic released Don't Tell the Band, their seventh studio album, featuring the track Imitation Leather Shoes, whose insectile protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Kafka's Gregor Samsa. The opening stanzas of the song are, "My little brother is an insect / He likes to crawl around his room / His mother shudders at the sight of him / His pappy is a businessman / Every move he makes is torture / He cannot speak words anymore / Our sister likes to flip him on his back / And watch little brother squirm," a reference to Gregor, his sister Greta, and their parents.
The American Christian metal band
Showbread references Metamorphosis several times on their 2004 album, No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical, including the lyric "You've locked the vermin in the other bedroom" in the song Mouth Like a Magazine, and again in the song "Sampsa Meets Kafka". The only lyrics to the song are "Gregor starved to death, No one dies of loneliness." The misspelling of Samsa is intentional[citation needed].
The Swedish rapper
Bladee alludes to Metamorphosis on his 2017 track "Insect".
In 2023, Japanese Vocaloid producer Teniwoha (てにをは) was commissioned by
Sega to write a song for the rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!. The song was titled "Samsa" (ザムザ) and it was written for the in-game event “Immiscible Discord”. The song reflects on how Mafuyu Asahina’s ‘transformation’ from a perfect daughter to a delinquent has disgusted her mother. It makes references to the original novel, such as “I beg you, please don’t throw the apples at me”, a reference to Mr. Samsa throwing apples at Gregor and wounding him.
Ghanaian-Australian singer
Genesis Owusu references Gregor Samsa in his 2023 song The Roach with the lyric "Feeling like Gregor Samsa, A bug in the cog of a grey-walled cancer".
Belgian-British funeral doom band
Wijlen Wij have a song called Die Verwandlung on their album Coronachs of the Ω (2014). The lyrics are an adaptation of the opening lines of Kafka's story.
Polish game studio Ovid Works released a video game adaptation called Metamorphosis in 2020. In the first-person puzzle platformer, the player controls Gregor Samsa as he tries to regain his humanity.[30]
Filia, a character from the fighting game Skullgirls, has a bond with a parasitic, shapeshifting creature called Samson. One of her special moves is called "Gregor Samson", in reference to the character Gregor Samsa, and during this attack, Samson has a chance to call out "Metamorphosis!".
The 2015 survival-horror game Resident Evil: Revelations 2 features references to many of Kafka's works. Episode titles of the game come from different works of Kafka's, with Episode Four being titled "Metamorphosis". The game also features loading screens with various different quotes by Kafka, including from The Metamorphosis. Alex Wesker, one of the primary characters, is specifically fascinated by Kafka's works, comparing herself to both Kafka himself and Gregor Samsa.
In an official strategy guide for Pokémon released only in Japan in 1996 references are made to a Kantonian short story about a boy waking up as a
Kadabra, parodying 'The Metamorphosis.'[31]
The 2014 game Bayonetta 2 has two bow and arrow weapons referencing The Metamorphosis: Kafka, which belongs to the main character
Bayonetta, and Samsa, which is a copy of the former and belongs to her friends Jeanne. They are insect-themed and reference the author and the protagonist respectively.
In the 2023 game
Honkai: Star Rail, players can play as a character named "Kafka". Her design implements many aspects of spiders, referencing the novella.
In the 2023 game
Limbus Company developed by South Korean studio Project Moon, a playable character named Gregor is a direct reference to Gregor Samsa. Gregor's base Identity has his right arm replaced with a giant cockroach claw, and his base E.G.O. of "Suddenly, One Day" is a reference to the opening of The Metamorphosis.
Comics
Bill Watterson’s newspaper comic strip Calvin and Hobbes references The Metamorphosis in several story arcs, including one where Hobbes references "Kafka dreams" prior to discovering a gigantic bedbug.[32]
Another comic strip,
Bill Amend’s FoxTrot, also does a unique spin on the story. Jason Fox, a science fiction buff, actually wants to be transformed into a hideous creature, and does get his wish. However, he is horrified to discover that he had been transformed into a smaller duplicate of his sister Paige. "Let's get you a training bra!" she says enthusiastically.
Artist
R. Sikoryak's series Masterpiece Comics features a
mashup of The Metamorphosis and the comics strip Peanuts called "Good Old Gregor Brown", in which
Charlie Brown takes on the role of Gregor Samsa.
The 2016 hentai manga
Metamorphosis (also known as Emergence), is loosely based on The Metamorphosis. The main character, Saki Yoshida, is an asocial middle school graduate who decides to get a makeover to get friends, only to have her life go through a downward spiral as she is used, abused, and abandoned by everyone she knows.
A Sunday panel of the comic strip Liō shows Liō eating "Kafka Krunchies with Metamorshmallows" for breakfast one morning. The cereal box indicates a surprise inside which is a live cockroach that crawls out of the box.
In the manga series Kaiju No. 8 the main character is named Kafka Hibino, a man who has the ability to transform into a monster.
A 2001 episode of Home Movies, entitled
"Director's Cut", includes "The Franz Kafka Rock Opera," a musical version of The Metamorphosis.
In a 2003 episode of Arthur ("Bugged"), Alan "The Brain" Powers has a dream in which he wakes up as a giant "bug," a metaphor for his anxiety about being annoying.
1992 episode of Northern Exposure "Cicely" Season 3, Episode 23 Franz Kafka, who has the appearance of Joel, arrives at the founding of Cicely, the "Paris of the North" circa 1909, to meet with Roslyn and hopefully cure his writer's block and migraines. With the help of Mary (Maggie), he is able to establish the premise for Metamorphosis.
2001: Season one episode 2 of Smallville is entitled “Metamorphosis” in which Greg Arkan (a student at Smallville High) is given bug like powers. The character Cloe Sullivan even states “if he really has gone Kafka…”
2019: In the Korean Drama Hell Is Other People (TV series), the antogonist, Seo Moon-jo was found reading "The Metamorphosis" book, which belonged to the protagonist Yoon Jong-woo.
2022: The Riverdale episode “Ex-Libris” (Season 6, Episode 13), features a plot point in which character Jughead Jones is implied to be slowly turning into a cockroach after Percival Pickens uses Jughead’s copy of “The Metamorphosis” for a spell. [33]
Trivia
The 2002 anthology Dreaming of Angels, edited by Monica J. O'Rourke and Gord Rollo, contains a short story titled "Mickeymorphosis", in which the main character awakens to discover that he's turned into Mickey Mouse.[34]
In the manga Tokyo Ghoul, the character Kaneki Ken mentions reading a book called Dear Kafka, which is the bestselling book by Sen Takatsuki. Within Dear Kafka, Kaneki mentions a story about a man turning into an insect.
In the Korean drama Hell Is Other People, the character So Jung-hwa, who's a police officer, dropped off a novel that's assumed to be Yoon Jong-woo's. It appeared to be Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
In the
James Morrow novel Only Begotten Daughter, a character wonders what sort of children's novel Kafka might have written: "Gregor Samsa was having a really yucky morning..."
In the anime series Godzilla Singular Point, the character Mei Kamino mentions Gregor Samsa as a comparison to Pelops II, the AI on her computer, potentially being a giant bug on another device.
On May 22, 1981,
Joey Skaggs converted an apartment into a laboratory, filled it with the world’s largest collection of cockroach art and memorabilia, and he and his congregation staged a press conference for the media. He introduced himself as Dr. Josef Gregor, entomologist. He said he had created a strain of super-roaches immune to toxins and radiation, and had extracted a hormone which he and his followers were taking. To date they had cured all of the common ailments known to man, such as colds, acne, anemia, and menstrual cramps. Skaggs proclaimed that his miracle cure would even make people immune to nuclear radiation. The purpose of the press conference was to make his hormone vitamin pills available to the general public, free of charge. Among the many journalists present were representatives of
United Press International. The ensuing UPI story read “Roach Hormone Hailed as Miracle Drug” which ran in hundreds of newspapers around the country and was picked up by countless other news organizations. Dr. Gregor was featured live on
WNBC-TV’s Live at Five with
Jack Cafferty and
Sue Simmons. He went on the air equipped with live roaches in petri dishes feasting on apples and a cassette tape of
La Cucaracha, the organization’s theme song. No one checked his credentials, which he said were from the University of Bogota in Columbia. Nor did anyone notice his references to the Kafka story The Metamorphosis in which the main character, Gregor Samsa, turns into a six foot insect. Several months later, after articles about Metamorphosis, Cockroach Miracle Cure appeared in hundreds of newspapers and on radio and television shows, Skaggs granted an exclusive interview to
People Magazine (September 21, 1981) and revealed the hoax. A flurry of post-hoax press followed, including a front page story in the
Wall Street Journal.
UPI and
WNBC-TV never retracted their stories. This satire was intended to bring attention to the media’s responsibility to report the truth, as well as to the public’s responsibility to seek worthwhile solutions to problems rather than panaceas and quick cures.[38][39][40]
References
^Hurtado, Ángel,
La metamorfosis (Drama), Estelita Echezábal, Miguel Angel Fuster, Jesús Maella, Venezuela Cinematográfica, retrieved 2023-11-30
^Tirado, Ricardo (1988). Memoria y notas del cine venezolano: 1960 - 1976. Caracas: Fundación Neumann.