My Paper

Shelby Wolofsky

Mr. Shapiro

World Literature H

25 March 2012

Kafka’s Trial: A Criticism of Society and Punishment

Kafka’s The Trial is a psychological account of a man who is accused and arrested for an unknown offense. This book takes the reader through a series of events that slowly take away all of his personal rights and his actual existence. Kafka was born during the late 1800’s in Prague Germany in a traditional and conventional Jewish household (qtd. in Kafka vii). As a modernist, Kafka was very cynical about the government and the legal system after WWI (Shmoop editorial team). When he wrote The Trial he dealt with the darker side of humanity battling an untouchable totalitarian court. Many of the characters portrayed throughout the story parallel his personal life. His domineering father and his emotionally withdrawn mother caused problems for him throughout his childhood (qtd. in Kafka viii). Many of his inner thoughts were taken from letters and diaries because he desired solitude and was not open with his emotions. The Trial exposes the psychological effect of being arrested and accused for an unknown crime and paradoxically creates Joseph K’s, the protagonists; own personal self-destruction revealing Kafka’s criticism about society and punishment.  

 Kafka’s protagonist in The Trial becomes part of the negative side of humanity thus fulfilling the prophecy of an innocent man being drawn into being what society wants him to be. There is a whole psychological effect of punishment where a person entering the legal system becomes what they are accused of. In The Trial Joseph K. slowly becomes corrupt, violent, and amoral. Before he entered the court K was a very successful man who enjoyed what he did, he held a high position at a bank, and was extremely motivated. When he was arrested he becomes desperate and obsessed with trying to prove himself innocent. As a result of K. becoming obsessed with his trial he becomes aggressive and frustrated. The reader is unclear as to K’s psychological state as shown when he causes fear and a screaming response from another defendant that he meets. K. Grabs a man’s arm when he wants him to believe that he is innocent and, “ the man cried out as if K touched his arm not with two fingers but with red hot pincers.” (Kafka 51). K’s reaction to the man’s screaming is to push him down on the bench and become even more aggressive in his behavior trying to prove his innocence. K has now become a loud and violent man. In addition, as part of a way to deal his terrible fate and avoid thinking about his trial, K sleeps with the women of the court. K sleeps with his defense lawyers nurse, the court ushers wife, and Fraulein Burstner who is a tenant in his lodging house. As K. becomes more desperate, his behavior becomes more distracted.

The book The Trial deals with issues of guilt, lack of responsibility, and conformity in society. It is interesting that this novel was written before WWII and Nazi Germany. It is as if Kafka predicted the future for the German society during WWII.  When K gets arrested in the beginning of the book and is agitated and clueless as to his charge, the guard’s response is interesting because he openly acknowledges that he is blindly following orders and doing his job to get paid, “We are minor officials who hardly know what proof of identity looks like, and have nothing to do with your case apart from standing guard ten hours a day in your apartment and getting paid for it. That’s all we are but we are still able to understand that.”(Kafka 8). It is interesting the guards are comfortable with being minor guards and do not care that they do not understand the whole picture of what is happening to K. who they are arresting. They are happy with being given orders even though they do not realize that the punishment is going to be death. Kafka criticizes modern society’s view of the court system and its way of persecuting people. The guards show lack of responsibility because they are just taking orders and do not care about the outcome just as the German guards in WWII took orders to exterminate thousands of individuals who were German citizens and like K. did not know why they were even being persecuted.

As part of K’s psychological reality, K. never quiet knows if the arrest is a joke and whether or not he should take it seriously. At first K. thinks the guards are actors and therefore makes a bad decision to behave very dramatically when he is being arrested. Because he feels that this trial is somewhat of a mockery he gradually gets himself in a hole, this is part of the concept of self-destruction. K. gets involved in defiant speeches during his initial inquiry. In addition there is an unrealistic almost comic situation when K.  Examines the magistrate law books and finds out that they are actually pornographic novels. The prison chaplain refuses to council him personally about the case and is more interested in his stories than about K. This absurd situation continues to put him at psychological disadvantage where his behavior is inappropriate for the seriousness of his crime. He is not taking the reality of life seriously. Even at the end when he is going to be executed he refers to the executioners as supporting actors. K. becomes paranoid that the court is everywhere watching every move that he makes, which makes K. confused because no one is willing to really take up his case and he is not even sure if the whole situation is real.

The arrest of K. gives the reader a better understanding of how the court system is confusing and illogical. K. is never properly given any options for his trial. He is told without discussion that he is being arrested, and all he is getting is a lawyer who works at the court house. Because the law is so abstract no one is clear as to what the law even means. Therefore the court interprets the law and the court is made up of corrupt judges and clueless guards. Because humans are running the system they are able to corrupt the law to their own preferences. Society cannot run without the courts and the courts depend on the law but yet when the courts are corrupt than society becomes dysfunctional.  What’s even more absurd in The Trial is that even though K. is being “arrested” he is told to carry on with his normal routine of life, “you’ve misunderstood me; you’re under arrest, certainly, but that is not meant to keep you from caring on your profession. Nor are you to hindered in the course of your ordinary life” (Kafka 14). He will not be thrown in jail or prison because the law is so powerful that it extends throughout society, making society a prison. K. becomes psychologically imprisoned without actually being in prison. Even though K is not given any options for his trial, he still ends up choosing the direction his life will go, “from start to finish, K., like the Rabbis' Balaam, is "led down the path he chooses to tread”( Lasine 35). Not fully believing the severity of his situation, when K has to choose between life and death he picks the wrong path and ends up being executed.  

K. lives in a society where success and individualization is nonexistent. The society that K. is accustomed to is an impoverished society that does not take care of the citizens. The society that K. lives in has a huge gap between the way the wealthy and the poor live. K. is part of the elite as a banker. When he becomes charged at court by people he thinks of as inferior, he “realized that this was the first clear defeat he had suffered at the hands of these people. Of course there were no reasons to let that worry him; he had suffered defeat only because he had sought to do battle. “If he stayed home and led his normal life he was infinitely superior to any of these people, and could kick any one of them out of his path” (kafka 42). Kafka uses K’s elitism to show the power of the masses and those he considers inferior to him to actually punish and kill him. It is his thinking that these people are not important that ends up being self-destructive. Kafka criticizes society by using those that were inferior to without real cause execute a man of higher social status.

The Trial exposes the psychological effect of being arrested and being accused for an unknown crime. It paradoxically creates Joseph K’s own personal self-destruction revealing Kafka’s criticism about society and punishment. It is interesting to note that the protagonist name is Joseph K. and often referred to in the book as K. which is Kafka’s last name. Was Kafka’s issue of guilt and responsibility something that he himself struggled with? In addition many of the characters in this book go through issues of guilt because of their conformity to society. The guards conform to how they are told to act and have a total lack of responsibility or knowledge when it comes to arresting the people who are being tried. Even the way in which K. is arrested gives him the opportunity to act in a way that makes his trial appear unreal or like a joke. Because K. is never put in jail until the end of the book, and is allowed to resume his everyday activity, he never really believes that he has been arrested nor does he know what charge he is accused of committing. The reader also gets this unreal and comical feel with K’s arrest and does not realize the seriousness of K’s behavior until the end when he executed. Throughout the book Kafka exposes a corrupt and illogical court system that displays power without accountability. The law that the citizens like K. are expected to abide by is so abstract, no one knows how to act. This lack of communication allows for corruption among the citizens. Because the average citizen is being told how to act individual thought is not allowed. This story is a great lesson in corrupt and repressive political power that ended up happening during WWII in Nazi Germany ironically to Jews like Franz Kafka.

my paper

The majority of dominant religious institutions found in the modern world have little in common with what they were originally intended to be.  Ironically enough, nearly all of these modifications made over time were influenced by corruption from the followers themselves.  This concept extends far beyond just religious tradition, however.  After meaningful examination, one can see that there is actually a plethora of incongruity between several aspects of human nature, surpassing those that deal strictly with religion.

Twentieth century German author Franz Kafka was considerably familiar with this theme and utilized the idea in several of his novels.  One of his narratives in particular, The Trial, bares quite a repertoire of his thoughts that illustrate what happens when the institutions of church, society, and state cross paths.  Kafka understood this idea so clearly that he passionately criticizes divine authority and human imitation for conflicting each other on several accounts.  In The Trial specifically, examples of his understanding are abundantly found within the thoughts and actions of the outstandingly ordinary main character, Joseph K.  Kafka’s choice to utilize a main character that holds an average occupation and a run of the mill lifestyle enables the book to be universally applicable.  His use of a broadly germane main character also implies his thoughts regarding society as a whole; he felt that society is nearly incapable of seeing all of these major incongruities of human existence, and if one does understand (specifically in case of Joseph K.), it is almost always too late in the process to rescue oneself.

Kafka’s primary route for showing the inconsistencies in human existence deal with governmental procedures and the paradoxes that transpire when compared to the basis upon which they were built.  Joseph K., who is simply referred to as “K.” throughout the novel, is charged, put on trial, convicted, and eventually sentenced to death, all for reasons never revealed to him.  K. is initially skeptical and plans to battle in court with his lawyer of an uncle, but after extensive discouragement from almost everyone he encounters, he loses hope.  One character in particular, Titorelli the painter, dejects K. so much so that he causes him to rethink his whole case.  The painter tells him:

Judges on the lowest level, and those are the only ones I know, don’t have the power to grant a final acquittal, that power resides only in the highest court, which is totally inaccessible to you and me and everyone else.  We don’t want to know what things look like up there, and incidentally, we don’t want to know.  (Kafka, 167)

Not long after his discussion with Titorelli, K. wholeheartedly entrusts his life in the hands of authority, convinced he has actually done something to deserve his conviction.  He no longer attempts to fight his court-ordered sentence and relinquishes his life. 

His willingness to allow the government to do whatever they please with his inalienable rights as a human being – and, had the novel taken place in the United States, his Sixth Amendment rights as well – seems to parallel a man who is surrendering his life on behalf of a greater being; a man who is leaving his life in the hands of God.  Incongruously, however, the hands in which he leaves his life are in no way holy or mighty; he instead leaves his life in the hands of corruption and distortion.

The outstanding irony here is basically that the government’s job is to create and enforce just and appropriate laws.  If they fail to do so, it is up to the people of that region to take the necessary action to appeal those laws or to even overthrow that government if the case calls for it.  Though it claims to be working with the interest of God at its core – “In God We Trust”, the authority in The Trial is in no way carrying out any divine duties.  The government in this novel shows no mercy or compliance to even listen to the testimony of one of its citizens, going along with typical procedure of countries today.

K.’s death sentence is another illustration of this idea.  Though it is still an aspect of many cultures throughout plenty of countries including the United States of America, ironically it is completely against the religious and moralistic foundations of practically all current establishments.  And even as citizens of most nations are increasingly voicing opinions in objection to this fateful sentence, it seems to stand the test of time and continues to be a means of punishment in various civilizations, including the once-Catholic Germany, where the book originated.

Another interesting paradox lies physically within the words themselves.  Each time Kafka refers to the law, he capitalizes the L to write “Law”.  This is similar to the fact that the Bible receives a capital letter; both fall under the category of important legislation for human guidance.  Additionally, as seen above, Titorelli the painter even refers to the location of the higher courts as being “up there”, corresponding to Heaven.  Kafka uses both of these techniques in efforts to depict a broadly significant issue people face today: national authorities constantly overstepping their boundaries and acting in an all-encompassing manner, almost as though they can do whatever they please.

Kafka shows the reader several struggles where a helpless man is fighting against an unspecified law and an unjust government, and naturally the reader feels irritation or maybe as though the book is entirely fiction.  Sadly, though, this sort of thing happens all the time in the real world.  Millions of people have unjustly died in the past, domestic examples including the Salem Witch Trials during the seventeenth century and the McCarthy Trials that occurred a mere sixty years ago.  It was years after both of those instances that the American people finally realized the severity of the injustice that took place.  These cases will not cease as humans continue to avoid taking action against the injustice that is happening in their respective governments, and Kafka strongly recognizes that fact in this profound novel.

Kafka draws further contrast in The Trial relating to this theme of incongruity within the human society when he discusses the two institutions of society and the state.  Rather than design a society where average citizens can achieve the same status in court and equality in general, the reader initially feels as though Kafka has created a society of inequality.  The fact of the matter is, however, that these situations are actually incredibly realistic; Kafka did not make it up.  Though everyone is supposed to be equally represented in court, rarely does this occur.  If K. had held a more lucrative stance in society, the outcome of his trial would be entirely different – most definitely to the point where K. would not be sentenced to death.

Kafka also criticizes society for its constant modernization that resultantly seems to ignore the middle class, and by utilizing a universally applicable main character, the majority of readers can relate to his words.  He also shows the reader, however, that the majority of the people that are taken advantage of do not care to notice the inequality that truly exists between the classes.  One character that illustrates this idea particularly well is Frau Gruber, Joseph K.’s landlady.  When K. informs her of his situation, she responds by saying:

You’re under arrest all right, but not the way a thief would be.  If you’re arrested like a thief, that’s bad, but this arrest – no.  It seems like something scholarly, I’m sorry if that sounds stupid, but it seems like something scholarly that I don’t understand, but that I don’t need to understand either. (Kafka, 47)

Frau Gruber fills the position of the textbook stereotype of a lower-class citizen who pays no attention to the injustice that takes place in her government.  She makes absolutely no attempt to understand, declaring that the case is above her level of knowledge, and clearly has already decided that, like many, she has faith in the government.  K., on the other hand, is the complete opposite.  He contests all the way throughout the novel to right before the end to comprehend his case and find answers.  By showing two extremes of society, one could say that Kafka’s intent is to show the depressingly inactive, lackadaisical, and apathetic medium of the always modernizing society.

Throughout his lifetime, this author made it a point to enlighten as many uninformed people as he could about the injustices that occur on a day-to-day basis.  His novel, The Trial, is his primary route for doing so.  These patterns of incongruity continue throughout the entire novel, where Kafka also makes minor references to contradictions between the institutions of religion and society.  He makes even more of a mention concerning the seemingly large increase of totalitarianism in governments that are authority in the present day.  In opposition to what many critics have claimed in the past, The Trial does not only refer to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist Soviet Union; it was designed to pass judgment on all of the governments in existence.

The original text, entitled Der Prozess, presages both “trial” as well as “process”.  This creates a sort of feeling of lunacy for the reader, especially when he finds that the inevitable is inescapable for Joseph K.  Kafka’s aptitude for creating a lasting impression – one that describes a positively unbeatable authority – in addition to his skill for slowly releasing information to the reader makes the outcome that much more interesting.  He creates such an internal frenzy in the mind of Joseph K. that it makes the reader start to examine the rest of the institutions of his own life, realizing especially the injustices that essentially occur on a day-by-day basis.

Thesis

So for my turn paper I decided to write that Joseph for what ever reasons ( which I'll discuss in the paper) wanted to be apart of the magistrate or do called court. Not so much wanted to be a part of the court but believed that the court was right. Throughout the novel Joseph Harley fights or puts any effort in to his case and appears to be sabotaging his own defense. What do you guys think? Only positive criticism!

All I have............

How do you guys feel about this so far?

The majority of dominant religious institutions found in our modern world have very little in common with what they were originally intended to be. Ironically enough, nearly all of these modifications made over time were influenced by corruption from the followers themselves. This concept tends to confuse people, especially those who were strictly raised to wholeheartedly follow a religion, and can often lead to one’s self-contradiction of his or her original beliefs. 20^th Century German author Franz Kafka was extremely familiar with this idea and wrote about it in many of his novels. One of his narratives in particular, The Trial, bares an extensive repertoire of his thoughts that describe what happens when the institutions of religion and humanism cross paths. Kafka’s constant focus of criticizing both divine authority and the human institution for contradicting each other suggest that perhaps he himself had a struggle with his own personal enlightenment.