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• Metamorphosis, The
  Metamorphosis, The

  noun

  a short story (1915) by Franz Kafka.
• “The Metamorphosis”
  “The Metamorphosis”

  (1916) A story by Franz Kafka. It is a tale of psychological terror, in which a salesman named Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

Metamorphosis, The

American  

noun

1. a short story (1915) by Franz Kafka.

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“The Metamorphosis” Cultural  

1. (1916) A story by Franz Kafka. It is a tale of psychological terror, in which a salesman named Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Metamorphosis, The “The Metamorphosis”

Novels such as The Trial and The Castle, stories such as "The Metamorphosis," "The Hunger Artist" and "The Burrow" are the Grimm's fairy tales of the modern cloven spirit.

From Time Magazine Archive

Metamorphosis The multitude of monsters melts away; the land changes into an Ocean; the creatures of the briny abysses appear.

From Concerning Lafcadio Hearn With a Bibliography by Laura Stedman by George M. (George Milbrey) Gould

Franz Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” asks: What if, overnight, you became “a horrible vermin”—a creature among the most repellent ever to crawl the earth?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026

Of course, every animal story from “The Metamorphosis” to “Charlotte’s Web” strives to do something like that, exposing our humanity by recontextualizing it in the animal world.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2023

According to Mr Stach, guilt and punishment preoccupied Kafka from 1912—the year he wrote “The Metamorphosis”, a groundbreaking story—until early 1915.

From Economist ● Nov. 10, 2016

Together these cover the great writer’s maturity and cast light on the development of such masterpieces as “The Judgment,” “The Metamorphosis” and “A Hunger Artist.”

From Washington Post ● Mar. 23, 2016

It was a first printing of “The Metamorphosis”; on its cover was the image of an open bedroom door, a man looking away and covering his face in horror.

From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2015