Nothing Really Mattress

Both Kafka and Camus begin their stories in interesting ways. Because they are so interesting, the translations are even more complex and can mean so much. The original line from Kafka's story is "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt". This is showing how the main character, Gregor Samsa, woke up and found himself transformed into an insect. There are four main translations and each one has different syntax, structure, and stylistic features. For the first translation, Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug, there is no punctuation and an ongoing syntax. This seems to be put in the most simply and straight forward way possible. The sentence does not pause with only a period at the end. The bug is represented as giant and the dreams were not good because they were uneasy. The second translation, "When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug." follows the same flow as the first translation did but a little choppy syntax as well with punctuation at the end of the sentence. The bug is represented as big as well but with the adjective "enormous" and his dreams are described as troubled. In the third translation, "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." It begins with "as" meaning he was aware he was being transformed into a bug because in the process of him waking up he felt himself turn into a bug as well. The sentence seems choppy and there needs to be punctuation between "dreams" and "he" but this follows the trend with no punctuation throughout the sentence. The term "uneasy" is repeated again but a different adjective is used when describing the bug which is "gigantic" which has a little more emphasis. Finally the last translation, "One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin." seems a lot more scholarly. The syntax is good and the sentence is formatted nicely. This translation is the cloest to the original in terms of punctuation. The bug that he is transformed into is not even called a bug but instead "monstrous vermin" which could mean a rat or any animal/ insect for that matter. This also mentions that he's in his bed which the other translations did not do and the dreams are agitated rather than uneasy or troubled. 
As observed in the unpacking above, each translation seems to be sending a similar message but not the same. The fourth translation was very different than the others by including punctuation and not even addressing the bug as a bug. The most effective translation was the first one because the sentence flowed and did not NEED punctuation and it was straight to the point so not much room for interpretation. The second and third one lacked a few commas within the sentence making it a little choppy. Reading differently translated texts is difficult because once a text is translated, it has many different interpretations. The tone of the sentence relies on the punctuation the most I believe. The fourth one seemed very serious in tone rather than the first one didn't have much impact.