FROM THE PAGES OF THE METAMORPHOSIS AND OTHER STORIES
As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.
(from “The Metamorphosis,” page 7)
All he wanted to do now was to get up quietly and undisturbed, get dressed, and, most important, eat breakfast, and only then consider what to do next, because, as he was well aware, in bed he could never think anything through to a reasonable conclusion.
(from “The Metamorphosis,” page 9)
During the daytime Gregor did not want to show himself at the window, if only out of consideration for his parents, but he could not crawl around very far in the few square meters of floor, nor could he bear to lie still even at night, and eating gave him scant pleasure, so as a distraction he acquired the habit of crawling crisscross over the walls and ceiling.
(from “The Metamorphosis,” page 29)
The sister played so beautifully. Her face was tilted to one side and she followed the notes with soulful and probing eyes. Gregor advanced a little, keeping his eyes low so that they might possibly meet hers. Was he a beast if music could move him so?
(from “The Metamorphosis,” page 44)
“Alone—do you know what that is?”
(from “The Judgment,” page 57)
Georg stared up at the monstrous specter of his father.
(from “The Judgment,” page 62)
“On a ship the morals change as often as the ports.”
(from “The Stoker,” page 69)
“Guilt is unquestionable.”
(from “In the Penal Colony,” page 100)
This was not the exquisite torture the officer had wished for; this was out-and-out murder.
(from “In the Penal Colony,” page 118)
A false ring of the night bell, once answered—it can never be made right. (from “A Country Doctor,” page 128)
No one was capable of spending all his days and nights keeping watch over the hunger artist, therefore no one person could be absolutely certain from firsthand knowledge that the fast had truly been constant and flawless; only the hunger artist himself could know that, and so at the same time only he could be a satisfied spectator of his own fast.
(from “A Hunger Artist,” page 138)
Josephine is the sole exception, she loves music and also knows how to give voice to it; she is the only one, and with her demise music will disappear—for who knows how long—from our lives.
(from “Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People,” page 149)
We lead very uneasy lives; each day brings its surprises, anxieties, hopes, and fears; it would be impossible for any individual to bear it all without the constant support of his comrades.
(from “Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People,” page 152)
Published by Barnes & Noble Books 122 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011
Kafka’s stories in the original German were published in the following years: “The Judgment” and “The Stoker” in 1913; “The Metamorphosis” in 1915; “A Message from the Emperor,” “In the Penal Colony,” “A Country Doctor,” “An Old Leaf,” and “Before the Law” in 1919; “A Hunger Artist” in 1922; and “Josephine the Singer” in 1924. Donna Freed’s translations of these stories first appeared in 1996.
Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
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The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-029-7 ISBN-10: 1-59308-029-8
eISBN : 978-1-411-43268-0
LC Control Number 2003102536
Produced and published in conjunction with: Fine Creative Media, Inc. 322 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10001 Michael J. Fine, President & Publisher
Printed in the United States of America QM 12 14 16 18 20 19 17 15 13 11
FRANZ KAFKA
Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 into a middle-class Jewish household in which he grew up with feelings of inferiority, guilt, resentment, and confinement. He was the eldest of his parents’ six children; two brothers died in infancy, and he had three sisters. Franz’s domineering father expected his son to take up a profitable business career that would ensure social advancement for the family, as well as a successful marriage promising the same. His mother was submissive to her husband, always siding with him in matters concerning Franz. Toward her son she was alternately fawning and neglectful.
Kafka earned his doctorate in law in 1906 but decided against practicing, to the disappointment of his father. Instead, in 1908 he took a position at an insurance agency, which left afternoons and evenings open for writing, and at which he remained until 1922—two years before his death.
Kafka’s literary method follows the logic of dreams and other unconscious processes, and his stories read like allegories without an established point of reference. Kafka’s best-known story, “The Metamorphosis” (1915), in which he translated his experience as family breadwinner into a parable of alienation, transformation, and ultimately death, epitomizes his style. During his early writing life Kafka was introduced to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Thomas Mann, and became part of a literary and philosophical circle that included Oskar Baum, Martin Buber, and Felix Weltsch.
Kafka had significant relationships with several women during his brief life, notably Felice Bauer, to whom he became engaged in 1914 and 1917; Julie Wohryzek; Milena Jesenská-Pollack, his Czech translator, with whom he became involved in 1920; and Dora Diamant, a young Polish woman he met a year before his death. Kafka’s sporadic literary career was in part fueled by these relationships, which varied in degree of dysfunction, and in which he vacillated emotionally, paralleling his mother’s behavior toward him as a boy.
Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917, Kafka saw the publication of a limited number of his works during his lifetime, including “The Judgment” (1913), “The Stoker” (1913), for which he received the Fontane Prize in 1915, “The Metamorphosis” (1915), “A Country Doctor” (1919), and “In the Penal Colony” (1919). In 1924 Kafka asked his confidant Max Brod to burn his remaining unpublished manuscripts. Instead, Brod dedicated the rest of his life to the full publication of Kafka’s works. Among these are the novels The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926), and Amerika (1927). Franz Kafka died on June 3, 1924, near Vienna.
THE WORLD OF FRANZ KAFKA AND “THE METAMORPHOSIS”
1846
Fyodor Dostoevsky publishes The Double, a work that will greatly influence Kafka’s story “The Metamorphosis.”
1850
Charles Dickens publishes David Copperfield; Kafka will imitate the novel’s style in “The Stoker” (1913).
1870
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch publishes Venus in Furs, which lays the foundation for masochism and has an enor mous influence on Kafka.
1883
Franz Kafka is born on July 3 in Prague to Hermann and Julie (née Löwy) Kafka. The family is Jewish and middle class, and speaks both German and Czech. Franz is the eldest of his siblings; his two brothers die in infancy.
1889
Franz begins elementary school at Fleischmarkt. His sister Elli (Gabriele) is born.
1890
His sister Valli (Valerie) is born.
1892
Franz’s sister Ottla (Ottilie) is born; of all his family, Kafka is closest with Ottla, for whom he plays the role of pro tective older brother.
1893
Kafka begins his studies at the German gymnasium in Prague, where he forms a friendship with Oskar Pollak, who will become a respected art historian and introduce Kafka to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. He also meets Czech-born poet, playwright, and novelist Franz Werfel.
1899
Kafka reads the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Darwin, Knut Hamsun, Baruch Spinoza, and Jules Verne. He forms a friendship with Hugo Bergmann, who will be come a leading thinker in the Zionist movement. Kafka begins writing, although none of this early work survives.
1900
The Germans first test the zeppelin.
1902
Kafka meets writer and editor Max Brod at Brod’s lecture on the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Brod becomes Kafka’s most intimate friend and eventually his interpreter, translator, biographer, and posthumous pub lisher. They discuss the works of Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Hermann Hesse, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, and August Strindberg. Kafka’s literary circle also includes dramatist Oskar Baum, existentialist and influential Jewish thinker Martin Buber, and philosopher Felix Weltsch.
1903
Thomas Mann publishes Tonio Kröger, a favorite of Kafka’s.
1904
Kafka begins writing the surreal story “Description of a Struggle,” his earliest surviving work.
1906
Kafka receives a doctorate in law from German-speaking Karl Ferdinand University.
1907
Kafka begins writing “Wedding Preparations in the Coun try,” a novel that he will abandon but that contains the germ of “The Metamorphosis”; both involve the transfor mation of a human character into a lowly, despised crea ture.
1908
Shunning the practice of law, Kafka secures a position at the semi-governmental Workmen’s Accident Insurance Administration, where he works until his retirement in 1922.
1910
Kafka begins to keep a regular diary, a decision that lends discipline and seriousness to his writing.
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