The Metamorphosis in popular culture

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been recreated, referenced, or parodied in various popular culture media.

Film

There are numerous film versions of the story, including:

• A 1975 television film by Jan Němec.
• A 1977 animated short film by Caroline Leaf.
• A 1987 television film of a stage adaptation by Jim Goddard, starring Tim Roth as Gregor Samsa.
• A 1993 short film by Carlos Atanes.
• A 1999 feature film by David Kalla.
• A 2002 feature film by Valery Fokin.
• Metamorfosis, a 2004 Spanish language short film by Fran Estévez.
• A 2012 feature film by Chris Swanton.
• A 2013 short film by Pencho.
• A 2017 Sinhala feature film Swaroopa by Dharmasena Pathiraja.
• The 1995 short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life by Peter Capaldi tells the story of the author trying to write the opening line of The Metamorphosis and experimenting with various things that Gregor might turn into, such as a banana or a kangaroo. The short is also notable for a number of Kafkaesque moments. It won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.
• In the 2006 animated film Flushed Away, a stove falls through the floor of a house to show an annoyed cockroach sitting behind it, reading a French translation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
• The 1967 film The Producers, along with its stage musical adaptation, feature a scene in which Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom search for the worst possible play they can mount in order to commit investment fraud. Max reads the first sentence of The Metamorphosis aloud, and promptly declares that it is too good.

Print

• Jacob M. Appel's Scouting for the Reaper contains a telling of the novella in which a rabbi attempts to arrange a "proper Jewish burial" for Gregor.
• Lance Olsen's book, Anxious Pleasures: A Novel After Kafka, retells Kafka's novella from the points of view of those inside his family and out.
• American cartoonist Robert Crumb drew a comic adaptation of the novella, which is included in the 1993 book Introducing Kafka, an illustrated biography of Kafka also known as Kafka for Beginners, R. Crumb's Kafka, or simply Kafka.
• American comic artist Peter Kuper illustrated a graphic-novel version, first published by the Crown Publishing Group in 2003.
• Marc Estrin's debut surrealist novel, Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa (2002), "resurrects Kafka's half-cockroach Gregor character" vis-à-vis the world between 1915 and 1945.
• East Press published a manga version of the story in 2008 as part of their Manga de Dokuha line.
• The Meowmorphosis was released in 2011 by Quirk Books as part of the Quirk Classics series; a 'mash-up' retelling by Coleridge Cook, where Gregor Samsa wakes up as an adorable kitten, instead of a hideous insect.
• A sequel Samsa in Love was written as a short story by Haruki Murakami in his 2017 book Men Without Women. It features Gregor Samsa, who had turned back into a human, and his encounter with a hunchbacked locksmith apprentice.
• The 1992 children's novel Shoebag by Marijane Meaker (writing as Mary James) depicts the experiences of a young cockroach transformed into a human boy and struggling to cope with human life. The story also features an appearance by a young man named Gregor Samsa who gives the protagonist tips on how to navigate school and social situations, as well as a process by which he may turn himself back into a cockroach and resume his old life.
• 2007's Kockroach, by William Lashner under the name "Tyler Knox", inverts the premise by transforming a cockroach into a human; Lashner has stated that The Metamorphosis is "the obvious starting point for" Kockroach, and that his choice of pseudonym was made in honor of Josef K (of Kafka's The Trial).
• During the events of Marvel Comics' Deadpool Killustrated the titular assassin pays a visit to Gregor Samsa's apartment and shoots him to death, his beetle-like corpse being found by Sherlock Holmes.

Stage and opera

• Steven Berkoff performed a stage adaptation in 1969. Berkoff's text was also used for the libretto to Brian Howard's 1983 opera Metamorphosis. In 1989 Berkoff directed a Broadway production of a play, adapted by Berkoff, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and René Auberjonois that opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
• Another stage adaptation was performed in 2006 as a co-production between the Icelandic company Vesturport and the Lyric Hammersmith, adapted and directed by Gísli Örn Garðarsson and David Farr, with a music soundtrack performed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. It was also performed at the Sydney Theatre Company as part of a world tour in 2009 and returned to the Lyric Hammersmith in January 2013, starring Garðarsson as Gregor Samsa.

Music

• in 1988, Philip Glass composed and performed a five movement arrangement called Metamorphosis. It refers to and was inspired by Kafka's novel and has been used for recorded readings and stage performances of the material.
• The American Christian metal band, Showbread, references Metamorphosis several times on their 2004 album, No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical, including the lyric "You've locked the vermin in the other bedroom" in the song Mouth Like a Magazine and again in the song "Sampsa Meets Kafka". The only lyrics to the song are "Gregor starved to death, No one dies of loneliness." The misspelling of Samsa is intentional.

Radio

• A 1982 radio drama produced by The Mind's Eye theater company. It is adapted by, directed by, and stars Erik Bauersfeld.
• A radio drama, combining Metamorphosis with Dr. Seuss performed by David Rakoff and Jonathan Goldstein and produced by Jonathan Goldstein and Mira Burt-Wintonick with Cristal Duhaime, was broadcast in 2008, on CBC Radio One's program Wiretap in 2008. In 2012, it was broadcast on episode 470 of This American Life.
• In 2006, BBC Radio 4 adapted the novella for radio with the story being read by actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

Video Games

• Polish game studio Ovid Works is currently developing a video game adaptation called Metamorphosis. In the first-person puzzle platformer, the player controls Gregor Samsa as he tries to regain his humanity. The game is being published by All in! Games and is slated for release in 2020.

The Metamorphosis was reprinted in the June 1953 issue of the pulp magazine Famous Fantastic Mysteries.

Comics

• Bill Watterson’s newspaper comic strip Calvin and Hobbes references The Metamorphosis in several story arcs, including one where Hobbes references "Kafka dreams" prior to discovering a gigantic bedbug.
• Another comic strip, Bill Amend’s FoxTrot, also does a unique spin on the story. Jason Fox, a science fiction buff, actually wants to be transformed into a hideous creature, and does get his wish. However, he is horrified to discover that he had been transformed into a smaller duplicate of his sister Paige. "Let's get you a training bra!" she says enthusiastically.
• Artist R. Sikoryak's series Masterpiece Comics features a mashup of The Metamorphosis and the comics strip Peanuts called "Good Old Gregor Samsa", in which Charlie Brown takes on the role of Gregor Samsa.

Trivia

• In the fighting game Skullgirls, the character Filia has a special move entitled "Gregor Samson" (a play on her parasite's name, Samson) which allows her to take on the form of a giant moth. Samson will occasionally cry out "Metamorphosis" while doing so.
• The 2002 anthology Dreaming of Angels, edited by Monica J. O'Rourke and Gord Rollo, contains a short story titled "Mickeymorphosis", in which the main character awakens to discover that he's turned into Mickey Mouse.
• In the manga Tokyo Ghoul the character Kaneki Ken mentions reading a book called Dear Kafka, which is the bestselling book by Sen Takatsuki. Within Dear Kafka, Kaneki mentions a story about a man turning into an insect
• In the Korean drama Hell is Other People the character So Jung-hwa, who's a police, dropped off a novel that's assumed to be Yoon Jong-woo's. It appeared to be Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.