Wow, These Puns are Really BUGging Me!

#1:Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.

- diction (connotation/denotation): 
Uneasy demonstrates a slightly negative and foreboding connotation because it is word promoting an anxious feeling or emotion. 
Giant gives a denotation of huge, so it would lead the reader to assume that the bug he has turned into is whatever giant means to them. The word leaves a lot of room for interpretation, such as for example, my version of giant is a bug bigger than a cockroach (the world's most abominable creation), but that may be different than say, Bob's version of giant, which could potentially be the size of a human. 
Bug gives a more colloquial connotation as it is the common name for insect. This could potentially make the sentence easier to read, as there is less interpretation of what a bug is. 

- syntax: The overall syntax is short, and it gets to the point rather quickly without much pausing.

- imagery/details: "Uneasy dreams" gives the imagery of a bad feeling, not exactly nightmares, but waking up nervous and apprehending something. "Changed into a giant bug" is imagery because it is showing that Samsa quite literally woke up as a bug. There isn't much more description about the bug except for the giant part which helps to give a small description of what the bug looked like.

- structure: The sentence takes on an active voice and structure, as there is no "he had been changed" in the sentence. 

- any other stylist/figurative elements: The tone of the sentence is surprising and startling, as it's something that isn't expected when reading the sentence. 

#2:When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

- diction (connotation/denotation): 
Troubled gives a negative connotation because it is revealing that the dreams were really nightmares.
Enormous gives a denotation of incredibly large, and its more scientific than most versions of giant, giving the word a more scientific and intelectual connotation than other words such as big or huge. 
Transformed has a denotation of change, but it could also mean a temporary change, as changed is seen as more of a permanent action than transformed. 

- syntax: The syntax is longer in this translation, and there are more flowery words such as awoke, and there are also more phrases that make the syntax longer such as "When Gregor Samsa awoke", "one morning" and "in his bed".

- imagery/details: There is some imagery in this translation, but it mostly focuses on location, specifically where Samsa is when he wakes up, and there is again not much describing the bug, other than it's enormous. 

- structure: This sentence is done more in the passive structure and voice because it states the phrase "he had been transformed", which hints that it was someone or something else that turned Samsa into a bug. 
- any other stylist/figurative elements: The tone of this sentence is much more scientific and descriptive, because it gives a set location and a more scientific description of what the bug looked like. While this still would make the tone negative and startling, there is much less of a startling tone as most of the sentence is utilizing location and descriptive (ish) settings. 

#3:As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

- diction (connotation/denotation): 
Uneasy gives the same connotation as before, with an uneasy and anxious connotation, which in turn promotes that startling and anxious feeling as the sentence goes on. 
Transformed also gives the same denotation as before, which possibly means a temporary change into the bug.
Gigantic gives a denotation of huge and large, similar to Godzilla. This also gives a more generalized connotation of what how big the bug is, as it's not nearly as scientific as enormous, but is a little more specific than giant.
Insect gives a scientific negative connotation to the sentence, and is very factual. Since insect is the more scientific word for bug, this makes the sentence as a whole more factual. 

- syntax: The syntax for this sentence is shorter, with less flowery words, and gets to the point faster than the second sentence. 

- imagery/details: There is a bit of imagery around the description of the size of the bug, but it is very generalized, which is similar to the previous descriptions.

- structure: The sentence is in more of an active voice because it shows that he transformed, not that he was transformed by something or someone. 

- any other stylist/figurative elements: The tone of this sentence is still mainly startling, but is a little more expectant as the sentence is really setting up that something happened to Samsa.  

#4:One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

- diction (connotation/denotation): 
Agitated has a negative connotation that makes the character or reader feel uncomfortable, and in this context, it can show that the presumable nightmare Samsa had left him uncomfortable, and possibly nervous. 
Monstrous has an extreme negative connotation that makes the sentence much more horrifying. In the context, the thing that Samsa had turned into was so horrifying that it was monstrous. 
Vermin also has an extreme negative connotation, and also explains how Samsa feels about the whole situation. 

- syntax: This sentence has a longer syntax, and is filled with phrases leading up to the huge reveal of the sentence. 


- imagery/details: The bug that Samsa has turned into is much more descriptive, as it is no longer a bug, but a monstrous vermin, and this detail helps to explain Samsa's emotions on the fact. 


- structure: The structure is more of an active voice than a passive voice, and this is showing that Samsa himself transformed into the vermin, not someone else turning him into the vermin.


- any other stylist/figurative elements: The tone of this sentence is so different compared to the other sentences, despite it being startling. It is also horrifying and gives a sense of internal hatred due to the description of the bug. 

Each of these translations were pretty similar, but they had their differences, especially in their meaning. The basic meaning was along the lines of: This guy woke up to find he was a giant bug. While the four translations stuck to this meaning, the tone and negativity of the meaning varied. The fourth translation stood out for it's negativity, and it's horror inside the meaning. The other three had variations, with the second and third being a bit more scientific, while the first one was very basic (vanilla ice). The words within each translation give it the tonal meaning, such as the fourth translation's "monstrous vermin" that gave the negative meaning to the text. The stronger the words are, the more effective the meaning is, even if the basic words make the most sense. Syntax also affects the intensity of what is happening, as most of the translations are utilizing flowery words and longer phrases that make the bug appearance more awaited and drawn out. The lack of imagery that was presented made the story feel more abstract and disconnected as there wasn't much description, even for the bug.
The difficulty of reading translated texts is that there are so many words that have so many different meanings that they infer totally different things that give a whole new meaning to the text. Also, as someone who has spent several hours reading translated texts (#HistoryIA), I know that meanings of words don't necessarily cross over from one language to another, so the true meaning of the text could potentially be hidden. While I'm 99% positive that the word from German (or whatever language that is, I'm sorry I'm not cultured) means bug, there are texts that have words that only exist in German or French or Spanish and the translations for those are usually different than what the original language meant.