Kafka’s bed. Die Verwandlung and the problem of the private.

The literature of Franz Kafka (1883-1924), is renowned for its representation of strange circumstances and existentially threatened protagonists. From the giant bug to the inexplicable court trial and the elusive castle, Kafka’s stories are full of familiar objects that have been distorted into unsettling metaphors. One such object is the bed, a location that repeatedly appears in his prose, short stories and novels. A closer look at one such text, Die Verwandlung (1915), demonstrates how the bed’s representation highlights a problematic boundary between the public and private spheres, lending a possible cause to the fundamental disorder pervading Kafka’s literary universe.