ENDNOTES

1 (p. 7) transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin: Translator Donna Freed here follows Stanley Corngold’s lead in translating ungeheures Ungeziefer as “monstrous vermin” (The Metamorphosis, Bantam edition, 1972; see “For Further Reading”). Elsewhere, Corngold also identifies Ungeziefer as deriving from a Middle High English word meaning “unclean animal not suited for sacrifice.” Willa and Edwin Muir originally had Gregor changing into a “gigantic insect” (see The Complete Stories).

2 (p. 7) held out to the viewer: Mark Anderson points out the similarity between Kafka’s description of this picture, Gregor’s one treasured object, and the figure of Venus in Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novel Venus in Furs (Bloom, Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”). In that story, Venus’ slave Severin is made to change his name to Gregor, which in Austria was a common name for a manservant. Kafka’s Gregor comes into a more sex ualized contact with his picture later in the story (p. 33).

3 (p. 15) visited by great misfortune: In some Jewish and European cultures, doors and windows are opened after a family member dies so that the spirit of the deceased may leave the house peacefully. Note, however, that through the rest of the story, an effort is made to keep doors and windows shut, perhaps connoting a death that cannot escape.

4 (p. 16) repelled by an invisible and relentless force: The head clerk, who has come to intimidate Gregor, is instead threatened by him, and thus his authorial position to Gregor is turned on its head. Though now gifted with power, Gregor fails to recognize his aggressive abilities.

5 (p. 20) hissing like a savage: Note that the father behaves more like an animal than Gregor, who at least strives to be articulate.

6 (p. 35) stood still and gathered everyone around him: This idea of vigor and vitality being obfuscated by affected frailty stems from Kafka’s observation of his own father. In “Letter to His Father” (see Dearest Father) Kafka addresses Hermann Kafka: “Your nervous condition . . . is a means by which you exert your domination more strongly, since the thought of it necessarily chokes off the least opposition from others.” The same type of attempt at intimidation occurs in “The Judgment” (p. 62).

7 (p. 35) It was an apple: Walter Sokel argues that “The Metamorphosis” takes on a mythic dimension with the introduction of the apple, which can be seen as symbolizing the guilt of the original parents Adam and Eve, not to mention Gregor’s own (Bloom, Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”). Thus the lobbed apples can represent death in both the original and the causal senses; in this light, it is possible to see Gregor as a Christlike figure.

8 (p. 41) “Come on over, you old dung beetle!”: This is the only time Gregor is referred to as a particular species (Mistkäfer), albeit by a fairly unreliable source, the garrulous charwoman. Despite the efforts of scholars like Nabokov, though an able lepidopterist, to pin Gregor to a rigid realism, Kafka remains intentionally vague about Gregor’s physical form. When “The Metamorphosis” was going to press, Kafka contacted his publisher in Leipzig. Fearing that Ottomar Starke, the illustrator for the first edition, would be tempted to render a metamorphosed Gregor on the title page, Kafka wrote, “The insect itself cannot be depicted. It cannot even be shown from a distance.”

9 (p. 41) three gentlemen boarders: Notice how all three boarders possess the same characteristics and dispositions, how, in fact, they all lodge in one room. Kafka employs this technique of fusing multiple characters into one to create an amorphous and unknowable figure—think of the doorkeepers in “Before the Law” and the mouse people in “Josephine the Singer.”

10 (p. 48) Herr and Frau Samsa: Grete’s transformation into “the sister” and finally the Samsas’ “daughter” parallels the mother’s change into “Frau Samsa.” Heinz Politzer argues that the women become mere extensions of Herr Samsa, formerly the feeble father, forming a powerful alliance against Gregor (Politzer, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox).

11 (p. 50) three letters of excuse: This kind of frivolity never would have been tolerated in the days when Gregor was working. Much of Gregor’s torture in the first section revolves around the prospect of his missing work. On page 8 the text reads, “What if Gregor reported in sick? This would be extremely painful and suspicious, as he had not once been ill during his five-year employment.” In Gregor’s own words, his family members have become “healthy but work-shy people.”

12 (p. 62) the monstrous specter of his father: This reversal of physical strength mirrors Kafka’s own perception of himself and his father. In “Letter to His Father” he writes: “I was, after all, weighed down by your mere physical presence. I remember, for instance, how we often undressed in the same bathing hut. There was I, skinny, weakly, slight; you strong, tall, broad. Even inside the hut I felt a miserable specimen, and what’s more, not only in your eyes but in the eyes of the whole world, for you were for me the measure of all things” (Dearest Father, p. 144).

13 (p. 67) The arm with the sword: Donna Freed notes that either by design or in error, Kafka describes the Statue of Liberty this way.

14 (p. 68) from the Irish especially: Kafka here pokes fun at Irish immigrants, who were reputed to be rowdy and hard-drinking, and were commonly not allowed in public establishments.

15 (p. 86) And that cook: Donna Freed notes that Kafka here refers to the woman, earlier called “the maid,” who seduced Karl.

16 (p. 150) Isn’t it perhaps merely piping?: The narrator of Kafka’s “The Burrow” hears a piping or a sort of whistling in his burrow, which he initially attributes to the “smaller fry,” among them “field mice.” This sound grows louder, and eventually the narrator convinces himself that his burrow will be invaded by something possibly larger—more powerful and sophisticated—than himself.