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Franz Kafka was born to a middle-class, Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic)
in the late 19th Century. Much of his works are incomplete, and much of them concern individuals who suffer in a coldly bureaucratic,
impersonal world. His father was described as a "huge, selfish, overbearing businessman and Kafka's issues with his father
are emulated in The Metamorphosis frequently. Kafka's religious education ended after his bar mitzvah, and was limited to
attending synagogue with his father, which he loathed. This tenuous relationship he had with his religion seems to be a result
of his feeling that religion was not necessarily the answer to life's questions and his existentialist thoughts. Kafka worked
at the Assicurazioni Generali, a large Italian insurance company, which he hated as well. His hatred for his job and the bureaucratic
system seems to follow the theme of many of Kafka's works, including The Metamorphosis.
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