The Metamorphosis (AmazonClassics Edition) recap

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman supporting his parents and sister, wakes transformed into a giant insect-like creature. He cannot return to work or make his family understand him, so he is confined to his bedroom. His sister Grete first feeds and protects him, while the rest of the family takes jobs to replace his income. Over time their fear becomes weariness and resentment. Gregor's father injures him by throwing an apple, and his room is allowed to fill with discarded objects. When three lodgers move in, Gregor is drawn into the common room by Grete's violin. The lodgers see him and refuse to pay. Grete declares that the creature must be removed. Gregor returns to his room and dies overnight. Relieved of him and newly conscious of their own prospects, the family plans a smaller home and looks toward Grete's marriage and future.

Gregor Samsa wakes before a work journey and discovers that he has become an enormous insect-like creature. His family calls through the locked bedroom door while he struggles to control his body and answer in a voice they cannot understand. Because Gregor is the household's sole provider and never misses work, a chief clerk soon arrives to demand an explanation. Gregor eventually succeeds in opening the door. His appearance sends the clerk running, causes his mother to faint, and horrifies his father, who drives him back into the room and wounds him. Gregor remains capable of human thought and is chiefly anxious about what his lost job will mean for his parents and sister. Grete begins leaving food for him and becomes the only person who regularly enters his room.

Confined to his bedroom, Gregor learns to crawl across the walls and hide himself when Grete visits. Grete and her mother decide to move the furniture, believing open space will suit him, but Gregor worries that losing familiar objects will sever his connection to human life. He exposes himself while trying to protect a picture, and his mother collapses. Returning home in his new work uniform, Mr. Samsa bombards Gregor with fruit. One apple lodges in Gregor's back, causing a lasting injury. Meanwhile the family's concealed savings and new employment make clear that they can survive without Gregor, though only through long hours and reduced comfort. He is sometimes allowed to watch them from his doorway, but affection gives way to fatigue as all three reorganize their lives around work and his confinement.

Gregor becomes weak and receives little care. His room fills with unwanted furniture, and a blunt elderly charwoman replaces the servants who could no longer be kept. The Samsas rent a room to three men and subordinate household routines to them. When Grete plays her violin for the lodgers, Gregor is drawn into the living room by the music and imagines supporting the talent his family ignores. The lodgers notice him and announce that they will leave without paying. Grete says the creature cannot be her brother and must go. Gregor retreats, accepts that his family would be better off without him, and dies during the night. The charwoman removes his body. Mr. Samsa dismisses the lodgers, and the family spends a restorative day outside, decides to move, and recognizes Grete's health and marriage prospects as the basis of a more hopeful future.

The lodgers discover Gregor after he emerges to hear Grete play the violin, and they threaten to end their tenancy without paying. Grete tells her parents that they must stop identifying the creature as Gregor and must get rid of it. Gregor withdraws to his room. Weakened by injury and neglect and convinced that his disappearance will help his family, he dies during the night. The charwoman finds and removes the body. His father drives away the lodgers, and the Samsas write excuses to their employers and spend the day outside together. They conclude that their employment is more promising than they had realized and decide to move to a smaller apartment. During their tram ride, the parents recognize that Grete has become a healthy young woman and begin to imagine finding her a husband, transferring the family's hopes from the son who supported them to the daughter whose future now seems open.