Kafka discusses the concept of normality in an interesting way in "The Metamorphosis". The story seems to take place in an alternate reality, one in which people can turn into insects without warning, but also a world that is obviously, in every other way, our own everyday world. So the story is both real and not-real. I think this is a good working definition of surrealism which Kafka presents to the reader: a version of reality that is familiar from many perspectives but completely impossible from another perspective. This is revealed especially since the story is told mostly from Gregor's perspective. He has no real thoughts of injustice or wrongdoing; he does not blame anybody for turning him into an insect. Rather, he accepts it as an incontrovertible fact about his existence as he knows it.

I think this acceptance is what makes the story most relevant to the War. For one, there is a notable absence of any deity or original cause for his transformation. It is an effect without a considered cause, and this is also part of the surreal nature of the conflict. It seems like there is nothing to which this mysterious transformation can be ascribed, and all Gregor can do, realizing this, is continue on with his life in whatever way we can. To me this "metamorphosis" is analogous to the War itself and how it transformed the world and people's perception of it. It might have appeared to someone living in the aftermath of World War One that events as troubling as Gregor's change might occur at any moment. It represents a fundamental distrust of reality and political stability. Kafka seized on this incapacity for trust and created the Metamorphosis out of it.