1) Opposed to what is perceived to be in a typical society, the government in The Trial seemed to have total control over what was occurring in society. They were able to control every aspect of K.'s life from his job, to church, to engulfing all of his time with this trial.
2) The three Kafka institutions, church, family, and state, set you up to fail. They interact with one another and have inherent contradictions. Throughout The Trial, K. has a difficult time choosing between these conflicting institutions and they ultimately cause his downfall.
3) In The Trial by Franz Kafka, we are able to see the alienation of one man, Joseph K. Throughout the novel, we learn of the different hardships that he is put in because of this alienation and it ultimately leads him to becoming a more independent person.
4) Another theme that is prevalent in the novel is that K. is very self-conscious. Because of this, he wants to try to be the best at everything and ends up over thinking a lot of things. This even leads him into firing his own lawyer.
1) I think that the first theme is strong because there is a lot of evidence for it in the book. We can see that the more time he spends attached to the government, the more he loses his sense of individuality.
ReplyDelete2) We spent a couple of days talking about this theme in class. Of course it works really well with the story, but I would just be careful and make it your own. Maybe you could develop it with greater specificity with the The Trial. Great thesis nonetheless.
3) I think that this theme works well with the first theme. I think that it is a detail for the first theme. There is a lot of evidence in the story for it as well. Maybe combine the first and third?
4) We can see that K has a really strong to perform well and be successful in the beginning of the book. But he starts to lose this motive near the end because he just becomes so fed up with the system and realizes that there is no end or solution to his trial. I don't think this is as strong as say the first and third combined together.
I think themes 1 and 2 are very strong, especially theme 2. It's an easy and very thick topic to right about, mainly because we spent a few days in class lecturing about it. Theme 3 also works, but K. Seems to become more independent in a negative way, not in a positive way. I don't think K. fires his lawyer because he is self conscious. I believe that he fires him because his trial was going nowhere, and that needed to change, so he fired him. Besides that I think everything is pretty good.
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