7) or resting in bed in hope of a cure (p. 10). Here he employs a reverse logic, an irrational hope that the bed will magically restore his “unquestionable state” (p. 11). It does not. In fact, Gregor’s human form isn’t restored once he’s free from bed either. But his irrational belief that it would be was itself generated in the bed. This divides Kafka’s universe into the irrational—dreams, notions deriving from the bed—and the rational—reality, working, family. The surreality of Kafka’s fiction consists in his constant traffic between these two realms.

In Kafka’s story “Wedding Preparations in the Country,” Eduard Raban fantasizes about splitting into two forms: one, to remain in bed all day, dreaming; the other, to go forth and conduct the business of the world. Interestingly, Raban envisions the “bed” form as a large beetle, the worldly self as the shell of his human form. Raban thinks to himself,

I would pretend it was a matter of hibernating, and I would press my little legs to my bulging belly. And I would whisper a few words, instructions to my sad [human] body, which stands close beside me, bent. Soon I shall have done—it bows, it goes swiftly, and it will manage everything efficiently while I rest (Complete Stories, p. 56).

Kafka differentiates the two tales by treating Raban’s splitting as “pretend,” and Gregor’s transformation as real. But in truth, Gregor invents his transmutation just as Raban invents his. The metamorphosis does not happen to Gregor. It’s something he consciously—or perhaps more aptly, subconsciously—wills upon himself. Gregor thinks of himself as “condemned to serve” (p. 11), as trapped. When Gregor makes his first appearance before his family in his changed form, he reveals his total willingness to give up his job: “If they were shocked, then Gregor was no longer responsible” (p. 15). This passage betrays Gregor’s premeditation and points to the idea that Gregor wanted to change into a monstrous vermin—something incapable of working in an office. While not consciously desirous of his new form, he’s sentient of his situation and very much in control. Of course, in attempting to shirk his responsibilities and escape the confines of the office, the lonely hotel rooms, and his family’s flat, Gregor confines himself even further; his room becomes his sole domain, and eventually even it metamorphoses into a storage closet.

Kafka’s metaphor of a man’s transformation into vermin is unique not only because the change comes from the man himself, but also because it critiques modernity and the impossibility of living functionally within it. In this sense “The Metamorphosis” stands as one of the greatest indictments against work ever written. Gregor’s impetus to transform reflects the illogicality of working life, the impossibility of sustaining a work ethic. After the novella’s fantastic first sentence, Gregor searches for clues that might explain his newfound condition. After ignoring the overwhelming evidence of his new body after the briefest of perusals, Gregor looks about his room. Out his window, he perceives dreary weather, which causes him to feel “quite melancholy” (p. 7).