348
PARTISAN REVIEW
Next question: what insect? Commentators say
cockroach,
which
of course does not make sense. A cockroach is an insect that is flat in
shape with large legs, and Gregor is anything but flat: he is convex on
both sides, belly and back, and his legs are small. He approaches a
cockroach in only one respect: his coloration is brown. That is all.
Apart from this he has a tremendous convex belly divided into
segments and a hard rounded back suggestive of wing cases.
In
beetles
these cases conceal flimsy little wings that can be expanded and then
may carry the beetle for miles and miles in a blundering flight.
Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings
under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on
my part
to
be treasured a ll your li ves. Some Gregors, some Joes and
Janes, do not know that they have wings.) Further, he has strong
mandibles. He uses these organs to turn the key in a lock while
standing erect on his hind legs, on his third pair of legs (a strong little
pair), and this gives us the length of his body, which is about three feet
long.
In
the course of the story he gets gradually accustomed to using
his new appendages -his feet, his feelers. This brown, convex, dog–
sized beetle is very broad. I shou ld imagine him to look like this:
