© 2014 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved.   In A
Nutshell  The great Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov once
remarked that "if Kafka's The Metamorphosis strikes anyone as
something more than an entomological fantasy, then I
congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great
readers" (source). Far be it for us to quibble with Nabokov. But
you could say that Franz Kafka's story deserves its status as
one of the greatest literary works of all time precisely because
it's an awesome work of fantasy. It's a story about a man,
Gregor Samsa, who wakes up as a gigantic, gross bug. Gregor's
abrupt and unexplained transformation, along with the story's
juxtaposition of everyday and fantastic elements, gives the
story a dream-like quality that is enigmatically compelling.
Perhaps it's because of the story's dream-like elusiveness that
a veritable critical industry has been devoted to figuring out
exactly what the story is all about. Some look to Kafka's
biographical and historical context to argue th