The conflict of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" is the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up late only to find himself changed into a bug of some sort. The conflict of the story helps to develop the central idea and effectively illustrate the struggle of simply living a normal life while dealing with impairment. Kafka uses the idea of being changed into a bug so that the type of impairment can be ambiguous to the reader; this allows readers to insert any kind of impairment they want in exchange for the bug.

The first conflict Gregor faces with getting out of bed symbolizes the struggles physically impaired persons face. The fact that Gregor is able to think of ways to get himself up shows that his mind is still working correctly, but his body will not respond. This is the dilemma that many physically challenged persons face, and is...