Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

Gregor Samsa, a man who works hard at a job he hates in order to support his family, wakes up one morning in the body of a giant vermin. The change is surprising to Gregor but is less worrying than the impossibility of providing for his family. He struggles briefly with his physiology but struggles for many more pages with his humanity and holding onto the shreds that remain of it.

Over the rest of the novel, Kafka explores themes of humanity, alienation, family, and responsibility. He delves into what it means to be human, to be perceived as human, and then have those perceptions taken away by no fault of one’s own.