Sunday, September 8, 2013

Bureaucratic Limitations in K.'s Personal and Business Life


Camille Kelleher
9/8/13
Response to Vero's post

I agree with Vero about K.’s dual personality. He seems to be a competent and successful banker, as he has his own office and does a lot of business transactions of a nature that suggests a highly ranked position. Yet, he has led a lonely personal life that only has thrills when he goes to see Elsa late into the night. These two extremes seem to contradict each other when describing one person. 
However, as I learned in the past couple of pages, K.’s business life and personal life seem to connect on the theme of bureaucracy and ignorant leadership. As of right now, in K.’s social life he has to deal with the bottom ranked robots of the government bureaucracy whose only power is to specifically follow orders. In K.’s business life he is one of the top tiered officials who wields a wealthy amount of control over the bureaucratic company decisions, “…they had faded back into the larger realm of the bank’s bureaucracy without any noticeable change” (pg. 21.) K. had the power to individually question the motives of the clerks. He was able to accept their innocence until he saw the damage they did to Fraulein Burstner’s photos, “…whom I’ll have dismissed from the bank at the first opportunity…” (page 29.)
Just as K. is annoyed with his inefficient arrest in his personal life, the result of bureaucratic limitations, he causes the same chaos and unquestioned control in the bureaucracy of his bank. Through these means, Kafka has interconnected K.’s personal and business life while denouncing bureaucracy.

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