The Metamorphosis · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Gregor Samsa
major
Gregor has spent years crisscrossing the country with textile samples, enduring bad food and fleeting acquaintances, all to clear his parents' debts and keep his sister comfortable. When he wakes transformed, his mind still runs on the old rails: train connections, the chief clerk's temper, the fantasy of quitting. His quiet resentment of the job and his guilt about his family collide with the new, helpless body in the bed, making his early struggle as much about duty as about legs.
Gregor's Sister
major
Grete is the one who first dares to enter Gregor's room, bringing bread, milk, and scraps she guesses he might eat, and she takes quiet pride in managing what the others cannot face. Yet she is also a young woman whose own future—music, marriage, a life of her own—has been swallowed by the household's crisis. Her careful tending and her growing exhaustion set up the slow, painful question of how long love can survive disgust and duty.
Gregor's Father
major
Before the change, he was a tired old man who fell asleep at the table and had to be helped to bed by his wife and daughter. Afterward he takes a job as a bank messenger, puts on a uniform, and discovers a new, harsh authority—especially toward the son who once supported him. His rages and his refusal to look at Gregor turn the apartment into a place of punishment, forcing the family to choose between pity and survival.
Gregor's Mother
major
She faints at her first sight of Gregor and afterward can only enter his room when someone else is there, yet she still whispers his name and begs the others not to take his furniture away. Her sewing for strangers and her silence at the dinner table show a woman stretched between love and revulsion, unable to protect her son or to let him go. Her divided heart makes the family's slow withdrawal from Gregor feel less like cruelty than like grief that has nowhere to go.