'When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy
dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of
monstrous vermin.' With a bewildering blend of the
everyday and the fantastical, Kafka thus begins his most
famous short story, The Metamorphosis. A commercial
traveller is unexpectedly freed from his dreary job by
his inexplicable transformation into an insect, which
drastically alters his relationship with his family.
Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories
included here in a volume to be called Punishments. The
Judgement also concerns family tensions, when a power
struggle between father and son ends with the father
passing an enigmatic judgement on the helpless son. The
third story, In the Penal Colony, explores questions of
power, justice, punishment, and the meaning of pain in a
colonial setting. These three stories are flanked by two
very different works. Meditation, the first book Kafka
published, consists of light, whimsical, often poignant
mood-pictures, while in the autobiographical Letter to
his Father, Kafka analyses his difficult relationship in
forensic and devastating detail.ABOUT THE SERIES: For
over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's
commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate
text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including
expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful
notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for
further study, and much more. |
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