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.