Q 01/05

In the famous first sentence of The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes one morning from what?

A) A heavy fever

B) Troubled dreams

C) A drunken stupor

D) A dreamless sleep

Answer · why

B) Troubled dreams

Troubled dreams. Kafka shuts that escape at once: 'It was no dream,' Gregor thinks, and his small, ordinary bedroom is still all around him.

Q 02/05

With no hands to turn the key, how does Gregor unlock his bedroom door in The Metamorphosis?

A) With his front legs

B) By ramming it open

C) With his jaws

D) With his sister's help

Answer · why

C) With his jaws

With his jaws. He has no teeth, so the effort hurts him, and a brown fluid runs from his mouth over the key and drips to the floor.

Q 03/05

What is the original German title of The Metamorphosis?

A) Ein Landarzt

B) Der Heizer

C) Die Verwandlung

D) Der Verschollene

Answer · why

C) Die Verwandlung

Die Verwandlung. It is the everyday German word for a fairy-tale change, such as brothers turned into swans, and Kafka chose it over the learned 'Die ...

Q 04/05

Where did The Metamorphosis first appear in print?

A) Newspaper serial

B) Literary magazine

C) Private pamphlet

D) School anthology

Answer · why

B) Literary magazine

Literary magazine. Editors had been asking for the story since 1913, after friends heard Kafka read it aloud, but Die weißen Blätter only printed it i...

Q 05/05

In The Metamorphosis, what was Gregor's job before his transformation?

A) Insurance assessor

B) Schoolteacher

C) Bank clerk

D) Travelling salesman

Answer · why

D) Travelling salesman

Travelling salesman. He sells cloth, loathes the early trains and hotel food, and stays only to pay off his parents' debt to his boss.