Kafka's Metamorphasis

In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, a traveling salesman awakens one morning to discover he has turned into a giant insect. He’s also late for work. Eyeing his new dome-like brown belly and numerous thin legs, the salesman naturally muses, “What’s happened to me?” That is this question that’s at the heart of this novel.
Gregor Samsa is the salesman. His job is boring and “grueling”and clearly he’d like to quit. But he’s his family’s sole breadwinner. So day in and day out he performs tirelessly, operating out of a sense of duty. “I’m under so many obligations to the head of the firm,” he complains at one point. “I also have my parents and sister to worry about.”
The concern, however, is unreciprocated. Neither his boss n...