The End

Through the progression of the novel, K. continues his life under the trial almost as if he is used to his trial. The way he is described towards the end is as if he has become so used to the idea of the trial that he lives completely normal, and becomes unshaken at the idea now. His trial just sticks onto him like a parasite, sucking the life out of him almost to the point where he accepts it, and lives his life with it.

It certainly was an abrupt ending to a novel that just kept dragging on and on. I think we all saw it coming the whole time, that sooner or later K. would be killed somehow. For the true exaggeration of Kafka's piece to truly exemplify the meaning of the fictional world and corrupt bureaucracy that is depicted in the novel, K. needed to die. It ties everything up so perfectly. I have finally understood Kafka's stories, and the pattern that he depicts in almost all of them. In every story, from the Metamorphosis to The Trial, the main character is always thrust into a situation out of his/her control. Their fate is inevitably controlled by the hands of other people, a feeling that is just absolutely gut-wrenching. Once you take away our control of our own lives, you take away everything from the person. You take their soul, their physical being, their mental being, and so on. I think Kafka hits on this idea not because he thought the world would come down to a society like the ones in his books, but  to depict how outside forces can, unintentionally or intentionally, ruin our lives for the greater good of themselves. It all wraps back around to this idea that man is inherently selfish. These institutions that play into Kafka's stories were built around this idea, and were promoted and spread by another idea. For example, (to me) religion was created on the basis of manipulating the masses and manipulating human action, and the same goes for government. They were promoted as something good for the people to believe in, something that the people can rely upon, a wall that we all accept with open arms.