The Metamorphosis recap

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who supports his parents and sister, wakes one morning transformed into a giant insect while keeping his human mind. Cut off from his work and unable to speak, he becomes a source of fear and shame to his family. His sister, Grete, cares for him at first, bringing him food and tending his room, while his father reacts with hostility and at one point wounds him by throwing apples, one of which lodges in his back. As Gregor's income vanishes, the family members take jobs and rent rooms to lodgers, and their patience with him wears away. Growing weak from his injury and neglect, Gregor is finally rejected outright when the lodgers see him and Grete insists the family must be free of the creature. Gregor dies alone that night, and the cleaning woman removes his body. The family, relieved, take a trip together and look ahead with new hope, turning their attention to Grete's future.

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a large insect-like creature, though his mind remains human. His immediate worry is not his grotesque new body but his job and his responsibility to his family, whose debts he has been laboring to repay. As he struggles to move and to make himself understood, his family gathers anxiously outside his locked door, and the chief clerk from his office arrives to demand why he has not come to work. When Gregor at last manages to open the door and show himself, the clerk flees in horror and his mother is overcome. His father, alarmed and repelled, drives Gregor back into his room, injuring him in the process. Gregor's transformation has severed him from his work and begun to turn his family's dependence on him into fear and revulsion.

The household adjusts to Gregor's condition. His sister, Grete, takes charge of feeding and cleaning up after him, learning what foods the creature will accept and managing his room, while their parents mostly keep their distance. Gregor, still thinking and feeling as a human, watches the family's life change: with his income gone, his father returns to work, his mother takes in sewing, and Grete finds employment, and the comfortable life he had provided begins to erode. When Grete and her mother try to clear the furniture from his room to give him space to crawl, Gregor clings to a picture on the wall, and the sight of him drives his mother to collapse. His father, returning home in a new uniform and blaming Gregor for the upset, hurls apples at him; one lodges in his back and wounds him seriously, leaving him weakened.

Gregor's wounded body declines, and his family increasingly treats him as a burden. To make money they take in three fussy lodgers and hire a blunt old charwoman who, unlike the others, is unafraid of Gregor. One evening Grete plays the violin for the lodgers, and Gregor, drawn by the music, creeps out of his room; the lodgers see him, are disgusted, and announce that they will leave without paying. Grete, exhausted and bitter, declares that the creature can no longer be regarded as Gregor and that the family must get rid of it. Understanding that he is unwanted, Gregor withdraws to his room and dies that night. The charwoman discovers his body and disposes of it. Relieved of him, the parents and Grete take a day's outing together, feel their prospects brightening, and notice that Grete has grown into a healthy young woman ready for marriage.

Gregor's presence steadily impoverishes and shames his family until they can no longer tolerate him. Weakened by the festering apple wound his father inflicted and by growing neglect, he makes a last effort to rejoin the household when he is drawn out of his room by Grete's violin playing during a visit from the three lodgers. The lodgers are revolted at the sight of him and give notice that they will leave without paying. This pushes Grete, once his most devoted caretaker, to declare that the creature is no longer her brother and that the family must rid themselves of it. Wounded by their rejection and accepting that they would be better off without him, Gregor returns to his room and dies during the night. The charwoman finds his body in the morning and disposes of it. Rather than grief, the family feels relief. Mr. and Mrs. Samsa and Grete take the day off and travel out of the city together, reflecting that their situation is not so bad and that they still have hopes for the future. The parents notice that Grete has grown into an attractive young woman, and they begin to think of finding her a husband, closing the story on the family's renewal in the wake of Gregor's death.