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.