SOURCE: "The Struggle of Vermin: Parasitism and Family Love in Kafka's Metamorphosis¹," in Ball State University Forum, Vol. IX, No. 1, Winter, 1968, pp. 23-32.

In the following essay, Friedman discusses themes of guilt, dependency, and parasitism in The Metamorphosis.

The basic motif in Franz Kafka's life and work is guilt, and the search for freedom from guilt. Indeed, the circumstances of his biography seem to have conspired in insuring that this would be so.

I

He was born in 1883 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which was then part of the old Austrian Empire, a large and ungainly assortment of nationalities and states, run by a vast and intricate bureaucracy. And to make matters worse, he was a Jew, so that his life was even more complex and document-ridden than that of the ordinary citizen. Added to these, he was the shy and withdrawn son of a domineering and successful businessman, and...