Apparent acquittal or protraction?

   Camille Kelleher

        

As I read further into this story, I am beginning to understand Kafka’s decisions on the plot progression and the interactions between K and other characters. The titles of each chapter are the names of the characters that K meets in each relative chapter. Kafka allows the readers to understand K.’s internal feelings and thoughts regarding the trial and its effects on his life via the conversations with each character. This reminds me of Ayn Rand’s introduction in Atlas Shrugged where she stated that, unlike The Fountainhead, this novel’s plotline and development of characters is based on the interaction and relationships between characters rather than the isolation of each character. I think Kafka decided to organize the plot this way because he wanted to emphasize the social aspect of the three pillars; the state, the family, and the church. Also, this style of writing emphasizes that court victims must socialize with people who have insight about the court and influence over lower court judges. This isolates the convention that only the written law can decide the judges’ decisions on trials and even diminishes its supremacy.

I consider the interaction between K and the painter as the most insightful so far because it provides a lot of information about the way that K can manipulate the lower courts and the extent that the court can strike destitute and poverty on people associated with its system. The painter tells K that his trial can reach an actual acquittal, apparent acquittal, and protraction; however, the painter can only influence the court on the grounds of the apparent acquittal and protraction. Although the apparent acquittal requires a concentrated and temporary effort while the protraction requires a modest and continuous effort, both are very similar because both decisions do not guarantee K as a free of the court.  K will be forever tormented by this trial and his life has already started to succumb to the pressure and stress from his trial. Given these two options, K now has to decide whether he wants to feel free even though the court can arrest him at any given time or create a schedule with his judge that plans the required meetings that K must have in order to stay in the lowest court. The former carries constant worry and fear of being arrested again while the latter carries routine interactions with his trial and his judge. Either way, I think K will begin to develop a guilty conscious and view himself as a criminal. If I were K, I would play it safe and have the painter help my trial reach a protraction so that my life will only be disturbed on those given days.