Chapter One
Gregor Samsa wakes up and finds that he has transformed into a giant insect. After examining his new physiology, complete with numerous thin legs, a hard back, and a segmented belly, he wonders for a short period of time what has happened to him. But, his attention is quickly distracted as he observes his room. He realizes that it is small and on the wall sees a picture of a woman he had clipped out of a magazine and framed. Wanting to go back to sleep, Gregor realizes that he cannot turn over on his side, which is the only position he can sleep in.
Gregor then begins thinking about his job as a traveling salesman. He hates the traveling, the worrying, and the fact that none of the acquaintances he makes are ever anything more than that. Then, finding an itch on his stomach, Gregor attempts to scratch it but dislikes the sensation. He goes back to thinking about his job and how much he hates his chief and getting up early. If his parents didn’t owe the chief a big debt, Gregor would have happily quit a long time ago.
Gregor realizes that it is past 6:30 and he usually makes a 5 a.m. train. He would certainly be late for work, which would create a scandal, but it would seem suspicious if he called in sick since he had never been sick in the five years he'd worked there. Gregor felt only a little drowsy, and saw no reason why he couldn't go to work. At this point Gregor's mother begins to call to him, and as he answers her he senses that his voice is changing. Realizing that he is still home, his father and sister also begin calling him through the doors, so Gregor tells them that he is getting up, trying to control the change in his voice, which he believes to indicate the start of a cold. His sister attempts to come into his room, but his door is thankfully locked.
Unable to control his numerous legs, Gregor instead attempts to move the bottom part of his body out of bed, but this part of his body turns out to be the most difficult to move and is also the most sensitive to pain. He then attempts to move the upper part of his body, which turns out to be easier, but then realizes that falling out of bed like that would injure his head. It is already past 7 a.m., and Gregor attempts to lie back and calm down, hoping this will resolve the situation. Gregor then attempts to rock himself out of bed, hoping to land on his hard back. He thinks that the help of two strong people would make this much easier, but ridicules the idea of calling for help to get him out of bed. At this moment the doorbell rings, and the chief clerk comes into the apartment. Gregor is angered by the fact that, though he is only a little late, already the chief clerk has come to cast suspicion on him in front of the entire family. In anger, Gregor swings himself out of bed, landing on the floor.
Gregor's father asks Gregor to open the door, while his mother is explaining to the chief clerk that Gregor must certainly be ill or he would never be late since he only thinks of his work and never goes out. Gregor refuses the latest request to open the door, and his sister begins to sob in the next room. Gregor cannot understand why his sister is already crying, since he is not yet in serious danger of losing his job and only wants to be left alone. The chief clerk suddenly loses his temper and tells Gregor that he is shocked by his behavior. There has been some suspicion that Gregor was absent from work because he was recently entrusted with some cash payments, and the clerk is now uncertain as to whether this really is the reason for Gregor's behavior. He also tells Gregor that he is acting disgracefully and that his position in the company is in jeopardy because his work lately had been unsatisfactory.
The clerk's speech hits a sore spot, and Gregor begins to defend himself, telling the chief clerk that he is simply suffering from a slight indisposition but that he will soon be at work and that his business has, in fact, not been so bad lately. No one outside understands a word of what Gregor has said due to the change in his voice. His mother tells Grete to go get the doctor, thinking Gregor is sick and asks Anna for the locksmith. Gregor is glad that others finally think something is wrong and want to help him. He Gregor manages to get to the door and turn the key with his mouth.
When everyone sees him, the chief clerk backs away, Gregor's mother faints, and his father clenches his fists and then begins to weep. Gregor begs the chief to give an accurate account of these events at work and to stand up for him. He says that he must provide for his family and that he will gladly go back to work, despite his present difficulty. People in the company often dislike him because he is a traveler and others think he has an easy job, but he insists to the chief clerk that this isn't true and that as a traveler he often finds that others have been gossiping and complaining about him with no foundation in his absence. He begs the chief clerk to agree with him.
The chief clerk continues backing away as Gregor is still speaking. Gregor realizes that if the chief clerk leaves in the state of mind, his job would be in serious danger. He attempts to catch up with the clerk, finally landing on his feet, but then notices that his mother had gotten up. She backs up against the table in fear and tips over the coffee pot. Gregor involuntarily snaps his jaws, frightening her, and she attempts to run away. The commotion gives the chief clerk time to escape. Gregor's father picks up a walking stick and waves it while hissing and stamping his feet in order to drive Gregor into his room. Gregor tries to back up but can't, finally attempting to turn around slowly. When he cannot fit through the door and gets stuck, his father pushes him from behind and slams the door behind him.
Chapter Two
Gregor wakes up early next morning, after thinking hearing the noise of someone entering and leaving his room. He realizes that his body is badly bruised from being shoved through the door earlier that day. Suddenly Gregor smells food, which his sister had left for him, near the door and moves toward it, discovering that it contains bread floating in milk, which used to be his favorite drink. He finds however, that he cannot drink his milk.
Gregor notices that there is complete silence in the apartment, which not normal. He hears the doors to his room being opened and quickly shut, and decides to try to persuade someone to come in the next time this happens, but the doors are kept locked now and no one will enter. Realizing that he feels uncomfortable in the center of his room, Gregor climbs under the couch. He considers that he must do his best to help the family deal with the current predicament.
Gregor's sister comes in and, seeing he is under the sofa, takes away the milk. She then leaves brings him different stuff to see what he will eat and when she leaves Gregor comes out. Gregor discovers that he can only eat spoiled food. His sister returns, throws away everything he didn't eat, and leaves, while Gregor hides under the couch despite the discomfort (his body is swollen from eating) in order to spare her the unpleasantness of having to see all of him. His sister continues feeding him after that at times when his parents were asleep and the servant girl was away.
No one talks to Gregor because they assume that he cannot understand what they say. He listens to conversations taking place outside his door. The family discusses him a lot, especially since there are always at least two people at home since no one wants to be left alone with him in the apartment. The cook, finding out about Gregor's metamorphosis, begs to be allowed to leave finally does.
From listening to conversations, Gregor discovers that his family doesn't eat much. His father explained the financial situation to the family, and would occasionally use money he had saved from his old business, which had collapsed. Gregor had not known about this money. When his father's business has fallen apart, he had thrown himself into his work and advanced in his job so as to be able to provide for his family. He remembers those times happily, but also recalls that after the initial happiness, the family became used to having him provide for them. He retained a strong bond only with his sister, and wanted to use the money he made to send her to the Conservatory to study the violin.
Gregor has to watch his movements very carefully, because if he makes any noise, his family will hear through the door and will become concerned. From listening to their conversations, Gregor learns that in addition to money left over from his father's business, the family had also saved a good deal of Gregor's salary that had been put aside. Gregor knows that he could have used the money to pay off the debt to his chief and leave his job earlier, but he agrees that his father's planning was best since it now left the family with some money. It was not enough to live on for more than two years at most, and should be reserved for an emergency. Every time money is mentioned, Gregor feels guilty.
When Gregor looks out the window, he notices that his vision is getting worse and he can no longer make out the houses in his street. Gregor also eventually realizes how much his appearance upsets his sister, and he figures out a way to cover himself with a sheet so that she cannot see him at all while she is in the room.
Gregor's parents do not come into his room, and his sister reports on his activities to them after she cleans the room every day. Gregor's mother eventually begs to see him, but the others hold her back even though she begs to be let in. Gregor thinks that he wants to see his mother because she can understand things better than his sister. Gregor now enjoys climbing on the walls and ceiling. His sister decides to remove all his furniture to give him more room and asks her mother for help. They come into the room, but find moving the chest of drawers very difficult. Gregor's mother suggests that if they were to remove all his furniture, it would look to him as though they had given up on his recovery. Gregor, hearing his mother's voice, realizes that he does want to keep his furniture since, even though it constrains his motion, it keeps him linked to his past. Gregor decides that he has to save his furniture.
The movement of the furniture and the women's walking around the room distracts Gregor. When they are momentarily outside, he crawls out from under the sofa and decides that he has to protect the picture of the woman on his wall. He climbs up on the wall and sticks to the picture. Grete and her mother come in and, when they see Gregor, his mother faints. Grete runs out to get some medicine to revive her and Gregor, wanting to help, follows. When she turns around and sees Gregor behind her, Grete drops a bottle of the medicine and runs into his room, locking him out. Gregor's father soon comes home to discover that Gregor has left his room and caused his mother to faint. Gregor, trapped in the living room by the locked door to his own room, cannot escape his father who chases him around the room and then begins throwing apples at him. One of the apples sinks into Gregor's back, causing him such pain that he can't move. As he loses consciousness, Gregor sees his mother running to his father and begging him to spare her son's life.
Chapter Three
After being hit with apples, Gregor has a very hard time moving around in his room. His father now realizes that Gregor should be treated as part of the family rather than someone who is hated; therefore, they leave the door to his bedroom open so that he can watch them sitting around the table while he remains hidden in the dark. There isn’t much interaction between the family anymore.
Now that everyone in the family has jobs, they are too tired to care much about Gregor. They let the servant girl go and instead hire on a charwoman to come in twice a day and do the difficult work. The family was forced to sell off their ornaments and wanted to move to a smaller apartment but couldn't because they couldn't think of a way to move Gregor. Gregor, however, believes that the family simply doesn't have the strength to move; they have reconciled themselves to suffering misfortune. Every evening Grete sits with her mother and they close the door of Gregor's room.
Gregor begins remembering people from his past life and thinking about the fact that they were now removed from him and would not help him or his family. Gregor also starts thinking about how his family no longer cares about him. His sister doesn't bother to pick out his food anymore and cleans his room very hastily and poorly. She insists, however, in being the only one to clean his room and, when his mother does this once, Grete yells at her starting a fight with the father who reprimands them both. Gregor is angry that they did not close his door to spare him the noise. The charwoman discovers Gregor but isn't repulsed by him. She talks to Gregor, calling him to her with names that annoy him. He does not respond until one time when she annoyed him too much and he ran at her, at which point she threatened him with a chair until he retreated.
His room has transformed into a dusty storage room. He finds that he has little space to move and enjoys shifting the garbage around in his room. The family takes on three lodgers in order to make money. The bearded lodgers are extremely scrupulous about cleanliness and order and attempt to arrange the apartment so that nothing unnecessary is lying around. Because the lodgers usually eat at the apartment, the door to Gregor's room is often kept closed. Even when it is opened, however, he often ignores it. He also stops eating almost entirely.
One day the charwoman leaves Gregor's door ajar while the lodgers are in the living room. His mother and sister bring in food for them and they inspect it carefully before eating. Then Gregor's father comes in and bows to the lodgers. Gregor, watching them chew, realizes that he is starving to death because, lacking teeth, he cannot eat human food. Grete begins playing the violin in the kitchen and the lodgers ask her to come into the living room to play. His parents remain standing until the lodgers offer the mother a chair. The lodgers, after listening for a short while, move over to the window and begin whispering to show they are no longer interested and are disappointed with the performance. Gregor, however, is drawn by it. Despite being covered with dirt from his room, he crawls out, fantasizing about bringing his sister back into his room, making her play for him, and then confiding that he had planned to send her to the Conservatory.
After noticing Gregor, the Lodger’s announce that they will not be paying for their time there because of the disgusting conditions. Gregor's sister angrily tells her parents that they have looked after the creature long enough and must now get rid of it. She bursts out crying. The father asks how they could get rid of it, and Grete has no answer. She ridicules the idea that Gregor can understand them and insists that, if this were really Gregor, he would have gone away on his own and left them alone. She claims that the creature is persecuting them and wants to drive them out of the apartment into the gutter.
When Gregor attempts to turn around, Grete panics. Finally, he manages to crawl back painfully to his room and his sister slams the door shut behind him and locks it. Gregor, remembering his tenderness and love for his family, realizes that he has to disappear. He agrees fully with his sister. He dies as the dawn is rising.
The charwoman arrives the next day and realizes that Gregor is dead. She announces this fact to the family. They are relieved and then retreat to the parents' bedroom to grieve. When the lodgers come out and find there is no breakfast for them, they begin to complain but the charwoman shows them the corpse and Mr. Samsa forces them to leave.
They are content with the way things are now. According to them the future does not look bad as their jobs are all likely to lead to better ones and they will soon be able to find a new apartment that is smaller and easy to manage, unlike the one Gregor had picked for them. Gregor had become a burden and they can now move on with the rest of their lives.
