I was forced to read and report on the Metamorphosis back in junior high school. It was an assigned book, not up for negotiation, not with that teacher. I was new to such abstracted thinking, and could only barely get past how disgusting it would be to wake up as a giant roach. My first reaction today? Still YuK! then a sigh of empathy.
I learned much more later, from reading a biography of Franz Kafka. Kafka was six feet tall, not huge by today’s standards, but somewhat uncommon back then, in the late nineteenth century. Franz Kafka was embarrassed by his tallness, and it made him feel conspicuous, as though he could never hide or be annonymus. This feeling of being a misfit, may have been the prelude to developing the concept of the Metamorphosis.
Interesting. It was an assigned book for my kid too. The funny thing with her, she really doesn’t like to read at all, but she always seems to get so much out of it when she does.
I have to say she had 2 great teachers in HS, one in English, one in History. I told her in all sincerity that after the time she spent in those classes she could leave school and she’d be a reasonably well educated person.