Relating Kafka and Dostoyevsky

I haven't finished reading The Trial, so I dont really have a 'reaction' on the end of the book yet. But, I have seen a couple of similarities between what we have spoken about in class and what I have been reading in The Trial. To me, one of the most important ideas of the novel is how a screwed up society and a screwed up bureaucracy can literally tear down the soul and character of a person. K. in the beginning is described as a character with strong character, he's successful, and is willful. Towards the end, he realizes that he is helpless, accepts that idea, and now is described as being submissive and pretty indifferent/nonplussed about his situation. In Notes From the Underground, Dostoyevsky uses the wall to parallel what we want to accept in our society. The wall is the boundary we accept to help appease our thoughts that we are alone in the universe, and that in reality, we are nothing. We accept the limitation with open arms, and it ultimately changes our life. K. in The Trial, after a corrupt and ugly process, accepts the way his society was built, and ultimately accepts his limitation (the wall) and it changes him for the worse.

The way I have grown up, and in the society that I have lived in has taught me that if you put in some hard work, you can always find a solution to a question. It's clear through the reading of Notes From the Underground and The Trial that this really is not the case. Notes From the Underground taught me (so far) how to accept the fact that we are indeed insignificant in this universe, and that it's ok to accept that idea. The Trial has shown me that the idea in the first sentence of this paragraph is indeed extremely false. It's obvious that K. was in zero control of his situation, and therefore refutes my previous belief system. The two books paired up together have created a new ideology in me that basically life is defined by how you do what you do, and the opportunities you take. We live in an individual's world. Our societies are built on helping others, but they contradict themselves.