“Ein ungeheueres Ungeziefer” versus Vicious Vermin. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of Franz Kafka’s famous story/novella The Metamorphosis (1915) and Ian McEwan’s little-known novella, The Cockroach (2019). McEwan’s narrative offers a fine example of intertextuality used for the purposes of political polemic. At the same time, the British novelist has little interest in elaborate intertextual echoes, since the main purpose of his story is to convey his sense of outraged disbelief at his fellow citizens’ baffling decision to leave the European Union. Consequently, despite the undeniable parallels between the two texts, the narrative arc of The Cockroach traces a different trajectory to that of The Metamorphosis. The article discusses the most important similarities and differences between both texts, focusing on questions of identity, language, and space. The most obvious way in which McEwan alludes to Kafka is through paraphrasing the celebrated opening sentence of the latter’s story, as well as employing the theme of physical transformation. Nevertheless, the two stories remain divergent in their ambitions and aims: Kafka’s can be read as an enigmatic reflection on the existential dread of an individual thrown into an incomprehensible universe, while McEwan’s is first and foremost a political satire.