1500 words

Franz Kafka’s drive to highlight the corruption of government and lack of professionalism in Russian society is exceptionally portrayed through the characters and situations that occur in "The Trial." The implications of his belief system were cleverly interlaced in the novel to express his dissatisfaction in the unofficial, unethical customs of the modern Russian government. Josef K.’s arrest was unprofessional; that is something that immediately stood out to the readers and set a precedent for the way the rest of the novel would carry out. The first scenes instantly produced a sense of confusion and question as to why something that is supposed to run in an official, political way is being handled so unethically.

K.’s arrest is inarguably one of the most important scenes in the story. Two clearly inexperienced agents from an undetermined source visit Josef K. to detain him, however they do not inform him of his charge. From these details it is clear that Franz Kafka intends to make a certain claim about the Russian government, and the scene marks the beginning of what will turn into a comment on that society. The agents that visit K. show no professionalism; by their actions it is reasonable to deduce that they are simply doing their job without knowledge of the situation. Now the reader asks him or herself: Why are unqualified individuals being assigned to official positions that are essential for a successful government?

The first court hearing of the novel is yet another instance in which K’s comment on modern society is blatantly underlined. The fact that the accused is notified of this hearing by telephone is already a sign that the judicial system lacks professionalism. He is given an address, but no time and no specifications. This court hearing is supposed to be something formal; something that is taken seriously by the system. However, this seriousness is entirely eliminated by the way the summoning is conducted. The lack of formality is prominent during K.’s arrival to the address he was given. He walks into the building, cannot find the courtroom, and is unable to find someone that can help him get to where he needs to be. After K. finally finds the unkempt, congested courtroom, he gives a speech addressing the unofficial way in which the entire event was conducted. K. is the controversial individual in this unsystematic government that charged him with an unspecified authorization, and in a way he represents Franz Kafka. The author uses the protagonist to transmit his critique of the way the world functions.  

One of the main critiques that Kafka brings to light in his novel, “The Trial,” is the idea that innocence has little to no importance in the outcome of a trial in modern Russian society. Many characters such as Huld, Leni, and Titorelli serve to demonstrate this lack of justice that is very perceptible in the system. The prolonging of the trial also alludes to the fact that no matter how innocent or guilty one may be, the trial’s results have nothing to do with what actually occurred in the cause, but rather which party has stronger or more important connections.

When Josef K. is lured into Huld’s appealing yet unsupported convictions that innocence plays no role in the court, he finds it difficult to pull himself away from the lawyer. Besides Huld’s incompetence in professionalism and formality regarding his job and where he meets his clients, he delays K.’s trial and places insufficient attention on K.’s case. There are many reasons as to why Josef K. postpones his separation from Huld; one being Leni, and the other being that he would not have found a better alternative. Huld’s justification for this theory that innocence is insignificant is that the only way to find positive results in a trial is to have connections in the judiciary system. Although Huld is supposed to be working for his clients, the way his character is presented shows that his clients end up as his slaves because they find themselves with no other alternative. Kafka believes that individuals in society always windup as slaves to the very systems that contradict themselves and lack the order and justice they claim to establish. Block, another of Huld’s clients, is the perfect example of an individual forced to work for the system. Huld is theoretically his lawyer, but because he has absolute control over his clients due to his hypnotizing claims, Huld is able to essentially abuse Block but still keep him coming back.

The reliability on connections in the system that Kafka criticizes in his novel is portrayed through Titorelli’s character. This painter, clearly unqualified and commonplace, is surprisingly an important figure in the court system. The readers ask themselves why such a seemingly trivial, mediocre individual holds so much power in the system, and they find that his high classification is a merit of the portraits of judges that he paints. Here is yet another character that represents the inadequacies of the judiciary system. Titorelli represents the placement of unskilled, mindless people in fundamental and critical positions in society. The people that are supposed to lead and sustain order are simply mindless fools that lack originality and innovative minds.

This system in which the government possesses complete power over the people is referred to as totalitarianism. From the substance of the novel, it is clear that Franz Kafka wrote it to critique this form of government in modern Russian society. The people in power are capable of doing almost anything they wish and the law does not play a role in these decisions. It all comes down to the inadequate and unofficial bureaucracy that Kafka comments on. Given by the content of the novel, it is evident that it takes place in a European setting representing an oppressive government in modern Russian society. Different characters such as Titorelli, Leni, Huld, and Block demonstrate the shortcomings of this system and exemplify what it is to be a part of an authoritarian government that handles important dilemmas unjustly.

The parallelism between K’s arrest and his death is an essential part of the novel as a whole. Through these events at the beginning and the end of the novel, unaptness of the government system, corrupt officials, and under qualified people taking on important roles is clearly visible and one is able to sum up the main themes that Kafka so cleverly emphasizes. Josef K is captured and killed on his birthday, in the same way that he was arrested on his thirtieth birthday years before. The guards that drive him to his execution are clearly just doing their job with no knowledge of the allegations. K. is killed with no justification; after all of the deviations in his trial, the biased politics, and the inadequate judicial issues that he undergoes, he is executed arbitrarily and with no explanation. This incident and closure to the novel not only underlines Kafka’s critique on the abuse of power occurring in Europe during these times, but also sums up the novel and confirms the idea that there is no way of escaping or overcoming these sorts of issues in a totalitarian government such as the one presented in the novel.

Kafka’s omission of the details of the trial also encourage the readers to understand that the book is not about Josef K.’s crime, (whether he committed it or not), but rather about the way it is handled by the government and the unscrupulous, inexpert officials that abuse their power and lead K. to his death. The public is left questioning whether or not K. deserved this undocumented punishment. Was it implemented in the right way, had he committed the crime he was accused of? We are never certain that K. is innocent, but regardless of this detail, we are confident that the legal affairs regarding this trial are never carried out professionally, and in the exclusion of these seemingly important details, Kafka achieves his goal of presenting modern Russian society as one that lacks principals of justice and professionalism. 

1500 words

Camille Kelleher

In his novel The Trial, Franz Kafka describes Josef K.’s encounter with a hidden totalitarian government and his transformation under the noted government’s pressures and disturbances in his life. The ongoing madness and Josef K.’s personal destruction captures the vulnerability of human institutions like the church, family, and state to human desires and the absurd, an existential idea that gives no meaning in the world besides the one that humans assign to it. Kafka criticizes mankind’s innate, destructive logic to create societal institutions that confines citizens and inevitably leads to the failure of human values and beliefs. These institutions attempt to deceive citizens by hiding life’s chaos and uncertainty, which is highlighted or awakened in the court system.

Throughout the book, Josef K. meets multiple characters who maintain their own different roles in society and possess exclusive knowledge of the court system. Their respective influence in the court system varies by character, but all of their interactions in the court system lead to minimal progress for Josef K.’s trial. All of them have inconsequential effect in Josef K.’s trial because they are subservient to the totalitarian government. Josef K.’s interactions vary with the characters given their role in society. Block the Merchant signifies a citizen who is enslaved to human institutions and causes his own self-destruction because he is attached to ideals that are designed to fail. He is overly conscious about his position in society and interactions with Josef K because he establishes his opinion on artificial human values. When Josef K asks him about his past with lawyers, he replies, “I’ll confide in part, but you have to tell me a secret too, so that we both have something to hold over the other with regard to the lawyer.” His inability to escape the human institutions leads to self-destruction both in his personal life and career. He hired five more lawyers because he doesn’t want to overlook anything that could be valuable to his case and spent everything on his trial attempting to ensure unconquerable success. While Block is trying to solve the system, there are other characters that simply accept its abusiveness.

Titorelli the painter provides a different perspective on the court system. He paints portraits of court officials and gossips about the court with Josef K., but acts like a beggar when he tries to sell his artwork. The manufacturer who suggested Josef K. talk to him says “a person is naturally reluctant to allow himself to be advised by a fellow like that.” Josef K still talks to Titorelli because Titorelli encompass the same characteristics, illusive and ignorant, that judges possess since he personally works with them. Even though he is a source of information for Josef K, Titorelli is just another interconnected member of the court. His apartment is directly connected to the court room and provides intimate access for the judges to enter his bedroom. Titorelli seems to represent the opposite of his role as a painter, one of creativity and freedom, because the judges demand to be painted “like the great judges of old.” Titorelli says that he tends “to lose a good deal of artistic energy” because “the rules for painting the various levels of officials are so numerous, so varied, and above all so secret, that they simply aren’t known beyond certain families.” The extent of control and censorship over Titorelli’s work is supported by all of his paints following the same formula. Titorelli tries to sell different pieces of his artwork to Josef K but all of the pieces look exactly the same, “It may have been intended as a companion piece, but not the slightest difference could be seen between it and the first one.” The lack of freedom or creativity in his work establishes that Titorelli is merely a tool of the court system. Titorelli knows a lot about the court system and the judges but is unable to help progress K’s case. Although Titorelli works independently for the judges, the men who work for the system see Josef K.’s outsider weakness.

During his arrest, Josef K. talks to the inspector who accepts the idea of chaos and the absurd in everyday life. When Josef K. continues to hammer the inspector with primary questions about his case, the inspector replies, “think less about us and what’s going to happen to you, and instead think more about yourself.” This signals the start of Josef K.’s transformation from accepting the human institutions to eventually rejecting them at the end of the book. At the beginning of his novel, Josef K introduces existential themes and describes the potential failure that every citizen faces while adhering to human institutions.

Superstitions and traditions are prime examples for symptoms of human institutions that confine citizens and ultimately lead to the inevitable failure of human values and beliefs. They allow humans to place blame and effort on theoretical forces that have no definite effect on the respective humans’ futures and societal standings, “Don’t forget in proceedings like this there are always lots of different things coming up to talk about, things that you just can’t understand with reason alone, you just get too tired and distracted for most things and so, instead, people rely on superstition.” There are plenty of irrelevant superstitions that exist in the court that determine the verdict, displacing the legitimacy of logic and reasoning, “There are lots who believe that, and they said they could see from the shape of your lips that you’d definitely be found guilty very soon.” When the society is characterized by superstitions, even though they are disproved by facts, it is hard to avoid them and they can have serious effects on decisions.  One tradition that is present in Josef K’s trial is the reliance on lawyers. This is supported by the idea that they are needed in order to win cases because they know how to manipulate the court system in order to elevate their cases to success. Most of this is determined by their ability to manipulate other peoples’ minds and decision-making skills. Lawyers support a set of beliefs that theoretically yield a successful and evident conclusion.

The pursuit of success and a final, concrete conclusion is another tradition based off society’s absurd belief set. After Josef K was initially arrested, he received a phone call from a court associate relaying information about his initial inquiry schedule. Josef K was left with a false pretense that “they had selected the expedient of this succession of closely spaced but brief inquiries.” The court had to disillusion Josef K because he is only comfortable with the idea that it was everyone’s “general interest to bring his trial to a rapid conclusion” when this was actually ineligible to the court. This part demonstrates Josef K’s attachment to societal pretenses that have no significance in the court system and even the universe at all. In the story, Josef K tries so hard to conclude his case and maintain his innocence that he disowns his personal life and struggles to live because he simply can’t adopt a different set of societal beliefs.

Titorelli the Painter’s offering of different outcomes for Josef K’s case describes the court’s alternate set of values and beliefs. Josef K becomes more unsettled once he realizes that neither of the choices have a definitive conclusion and answer. The first option of apparent acquittal enters Josef K’s trial into a viscous cycle of acquittals and arrests. The second option of protraction leaves his trial at the lowest level of the court without any progression past the initial stage. After listening to the descriptions of both options, Josef K’s “head ached from the effort he had made to force himself to listen.” Josef K will never be at peace with his case and he has to accept that the future involves the court system’s pressure for control over his life. This is the sign that the totalitarian government leaves no freedom for its dependents and Josef K has yet to accept and become comfortable with this idea because he cannot give up his autonomy present in his life before he was arrested. This whole conflict and lack of peace leaves Josef K wanting more and making worse decisions because of his lack of flexibility.

The allegory presented by the prison chaplain in the cathedral addresses the paradox that humans believe ideas, values, and beliefs even though they cannot physically see it and its proof. It is about a man who is desperately trying to gain permission to enter a door and he dies before his wish is granted. Everything about the plot is logical, but the setting and characters seem somewhat allusive and are not at all identical with our reality. The characters don’t have any human characteristics or traits and are rather translated to motives. The man from the countryside is a persistent desire while the doorkeeper is like an obstacle to the identity of a hidden Law that neither of them knows. The man from the country side is who is waiting for permission from the doorkeeper is like the man who is looking for freedom but always seems to block himself from it or the man who is looking for absolute happiness but can never find it. They are all the same characters, a man desiring an absolute ideal that doesn’t exist in reality. This describes Josef K, he never achieved a sense of isolation from the judicial system. There is no exit from the court system and there is no way to avoid the system. It is an absolute that engulfs everyone even though it cannot be felt and perceived.

3rd body paragraph

The idea of changing who we are based on policies and structures put in place by the government stems largely off of The Trial. Kafka uses K. as an example of this deterioration of the human soul built off of societal institutions. Everything we build up as a society for the "greater good" of society itself can sometimes do more damage than good. As humans, we always have the intrinsic need to please ourself and satisfy our own needs over everyone else's. Kafka displays this in the phony bureaucracy placed in The Trial. Whoever created the bureaucracy obviously had bigger plans in mind for himself/herself, but promoted it as a good thing for society. K. is the example of the innocent bystander that is struck by the negative externality of the fake institution, which was operating towards the need or want of another human being in the web that makes up society. Therefore, what we create in society ultimately can (and usually does) hurt that same society. K. is Kafka's main emphasis on this idea, showing that even the most successful people in society can fall down based on the institutions that we perceive to be doing a good job for society. It's odd that Kafka seemed to be able to exaggerate and foresee such an imperceivable type of civilization. In the United States, we live under a government that seems to grow closer and closer into what seems to feel like something along the lines of what Kafka writes about. A governmental institution that could change innocent bystanders, just like K. With portions of the government like the NSA and all that the internet tracks, literally any person in all of the United States is under watch, and is under some suspicion at all times. It doesn't quite fit the extreme population that Kafka promotes in his book, but it definitely raises some eyebrows as to where we are headed as a nation and society. K. suffers to show the potential of a bureaucracy as radical as the one in The Trial. A bureaucracy that could take the most successful of people, turn them into crap, and then take their life. Whoever is under the control of an institution like that portrayed in The Trial has his/her own, personal, wants that will ultimately gained regardless of whose lives are taken in the process. In this case, it was K.'s life for the want of another. In other cases, it could be me or you.

3rd Body Paragraph

At the beginning of the novel, Kafka characterizes Joseph K. as a man who devotes a significant amount of time to business. In fact, he describes himself as being a business man thinks of himself higher than he does others in his workplace. K. describes how others were jealous because he is so devoted and excels in his occupational environment. However, the alienation that is caused by the trial begins to impede on this environment due to the fact that it is drawing all of his attention and time. People in his workplace begin to recognize this odd occurrence and attempt to alleviate any extra stress or pressure that is caused by work. In fact, the Vice President of K.’s company steals a client from K. and goes as far as explaining the predicament that K. is in to the client. This just further alienates K. instead of helping him in a positive way. He is now forced to act alone in work and lets the trial consume more parts of his work. Even though the boss thinks that he may be helping Joseph, in reality, he is probably just creating more chaos for a man who does not need more of that. “Didn’t a painstaking defense simultaneously imply the necessity of cutting himself of as far as possible from everything else? Would he successfully survive that?”. This quote explains the idea that the different aspects his life from before the trial kept K. sane. While others may think that alleviating work from a man may make him better, you are in reality taking away something that he is used to doing everyday and it makes him happy. This image that is created at the beginning of K. being a businessman is slowly beginning to disappear. He is now being looked at as a charity case who needs help in everyway possible or else he may not survive the trial. The trial is starting to take over the one part of his life that he cared the most about and once you take over that part of K.’s life, he is going to be completely shut out from the outside world. This situation is going to force K. to begin to work on his trial more and more ultimately causing him to fold and crash. If the trial did not consume his entire life, then he might have pursued his career further and ultimately had a better life for himself. The trial truly messed up his chances in this regard.

2nd body paragraph

All of the successful qualities present in K. during the brief encounter before his arrest quickly evaporated as his life went on after his arrest. His qualities of getting the job done, and finding a way to make things work out in his favor turned into qualities of sluggishness and inefficiency. A man once described as being persistent and climbing the ladder of success at his bank quickly took a 360 degree turn into someone completely different. The trial became too much for K. to handle, but it's not like he did not put up a decent fight. He started going to his trial "hearings" and soon realized that the whole system was basically some phony, societal based community of student lawyers. He becomes completely obsessed with his trial, showing up to the court rooms on days that weren't even assigned as days just because maybe there was a chance that he did have a hearing that day, and he accidentally forgot about it. This begins to show the obsessive behavior that K. develops over time, which leads to his ultimate demise as a character. The obsessive behavior displayed by K. in the middle of the novel begin to leak in his work. K. turns to the painter, Titorelli, for help. Titorelli offers some help, but gives no definitive answers, leading K. to hire a lawyer. K. gives his case up to someone else, instead of taking it by the horns and trying to take the case on by himself. The biggest turning point for K. is when he sees the lawyer's client who has the same problem as K. He shows to both K. and to the reader that once you're stuck in the trial system, you're stuck for life, and have to devote your life to basically just prolong your existence on the planet. So, instead of trying to find an answer to this, or working through the process, he just decides to fire his lawyer, and take the trial into his own (now lazy and indifferent) hands. Rather than working through the process with his lawyer, and prolonging his life span, he decided to throw in the towel and call it quits. The whole dynamic displayed by Kafka in this novel help show the deterioration of a once very successful young man with a lot of potential. Kafka uses K. and the trial to show how certain aspects of the governing bodies around us can sometimes change who we are and ultimately control who we are at our core existences.

1000 words

One of the main critiques that Kafka brings to light in his novel, “The Trial,” is the idea that innocence has little to no importance in the outcome of a trial in modern Russian society. Many characters such as Huld, Leni, and Titorelli serve to demonstrate this lack of justice that is very perceptible in the system. The prolonging of the trial also alludes to the fact that no matter how innocent or guilty one may be, the trial’s results have nothing to do with what actually occurred in the cause, but rather which party has stronger or more important connections.

When Joseph K. is lured into Huld’s appealing yet unsupported convictions that innocence plays no role in the court, he finds it difficult to pull himself away from the lawyer. Besides Huld’s incompetence in professionalism and formality regarding his job and where he meets his clients, he delays K.’s trial and places insufficient attention on K.’s case. There are many reasons as to why Joseph K. postpones his separation from Huld; one being Leni, and the other being that he would not have found a better alternative. Huld’s justification for this theory that innocence is insignificant is that the only way to find positive results in a trial is to have connections in the judiciary system. Although Huld is supposed to be working for his clients, the way his character is presented shows that his clients end up as his slaves because they find themselves with no other alternative. Kafka believes that individuals in society always windup as slaves to the very systems that contradict themselves and lack the order and justice they claim to establish. Block, another of Huld’s clients, is the perfect example of an individual forced to work for the system. Huld is theoretically his lawyer, but because he has absolute control over his clients due to his hypnotizing claims, Huld is able to essentially abuse Block but still keep him coming back.

The reliability on connections in the system that Kafka criticizes in his novel is portrayed through Titorelli’s character. This painter, clearly unqualified and commonplace, is surprisingly an important figure in the court system. The readers ask themselves why such a seemingly trivial, mediocre individual holds so much power in the system, and they find that his high classification is a merit of the portraits of judges that he paints. Here is yet another character that represents the inadequacies of the judiciary system. Titorelli represents the placement of unskilled, mindless people in fundamental and critical positions in society. The people that are supposed to lead and sustain order are simply mindless fools that lack originality and innovative minds.