While Kafka's novella is comprised of sentence structures that can be interpreted in different ways, the ambiguity in the novella comes not from what is said, but from what is not being said (Sokel 204). Kafka's novella was translated from German many times by different authors throughout its publication history. The 2014 edition of the novella included an afterword on "The Metamorphosis" by Susan Bernofsky, the edition's translator (Kafka 119). Bernofsky considered her translational efforts in the afterword and reflected on which motifs and words were difficult to translate directly and were therefore, substituted with the most similar choices. The title itself has been adapted as close as was possible but does not directly represent the original German title of "Verwandlung," which is a word used "in fairy tales used to describe the transformation, say, of a girl's seven brothers into swans" (Kafka 126). Metamorphosis is usually associated with the animal kingdom but does have a secondary meaning which is more generally referred to in the Oxford English Dictionary as being "the action or process of changing in form, shape, or substance; esp. transformation by supernatural means" (Kafka 126). Thus the most crucial aspect of the novella, its title, has been translated into the word metamorphosis which many misunderstand to mean the definition that is most commonly associated with it, of referring to an animal when, in fact, it was intended to connote the less common definition. The ambiguity that arises from the result of the novella's German translation provides an example of why "The Metamorphosis" contains many interpretative values similar to Hemingway's use of the iceberg principle. .
The conscious literary choice to use the iceberg principle in "Hills Like White Elephants," and the unintended translational impact that occurred in "The Metamorphosis," combined with Kafka's ambiguous literary style, both provide explanations to the deeper meanings that each story contains, that most readers would not consider upon their initial understanding.
