Adding to the post about The Trial and The Lecture, I talked about how the powers work together but battle at the same time. Even though it seems as if the powers are working together, the novel shows how by following one of the powers deteriorates the others. K. has to deal with and accept the fact that his family will not think, trust, or think of him in the same way. Even though he does not know how or why he is put on trial, his relationship with his family changes for the worse. By conforming to one of the powers it simply turns into a game of chess, using K. as a pawn. He has to follow the rules of the justice system which battles the rest of the powers. This is what makes society so sad, the fact that people are pressured into being loyal to your family and keeping them happy and having to follow the rules to the justice system and church. Which is impossible and in the end something has to be sacrificed, either your relationship to your family and what you believe in or your freedom
After reading through most of The Trial, the lecture that we received in class seems to piece the novel together. During the lecture we were taught about Church vs Society and family and how the both work together but battle at the same time. Basically the church and society find a way to keep the people inside their guidelines by threatening them with consequences. The only problem with how the society works is that, they have found rules and consequences inside their own “towers” (how they were referred to in the lecture) but the only way for us to be accepted into one of those towers is too follow all of the guidelines. Seems simple, but the only problem is that all of the towers contradict each other in one way or another. Which pretty much pre determines that we are all going to fail in some way or another. This all ties back to religion, with the “first people” to make mistakes. Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise (The Garden of Eden) because Eve convinced Adam to eat the apple with her after they were specifically told not to. Since all humans are supposed to originate from Adam and Eve, everyone is born with original sin. Which is the reason why babies are baptized when they are born. This shows how religion and the church have already pre determined us to fail before we are even born. This ties all very well into Kafka’s the trial, K. is put on trial for a crime that he has no idea of and has to find a way out. By “society” not telling him what his crime was they are already determining him to fail, because no matter how good you are you will never be able to fight your way out of something you don’t know. This also ties in to the lecture, the whole part about society keeping you in their “bubble”. By not telling him what he has done and threatening him with consequences like jail, that ensures that he will follow the rules of society from now on so he is not banned or punished.
Just about everyone has already pointed out Kafka’s reoccurring attitude on women in The Trial. K recklessly plays with women’s hearts as they seem to fall for him regularly in order to get what he wants. K feeds off of the attention he receives from women and jumps from one to another with an obvious air of confidence and a certain apathy. It is honestly strange and hard to explain K’s way with women. Each individual woman he encounters seems to mean nothing to him, as he easily uses them in more ways than one only to leave them in the past at first chance. Yet, it is pretty clear that K needs this attention and affection. This is a screaming reflection of Franz Kafka himself. Kafka’s love life is…notorious, for lack of a better word. He was known to have countless affairs with woman, and also for regularly hiring prostitutes. Both Kafka and K have a constant need to have the attention of women, yet both are never satisfied and cannot develop deeper relationships. True, Kafka did claim to have fallen in love, yet even then he had several mistresses. He was emotionally promiscuous, if you will, in that he would write romantic letters to many of his mistresses along with having physical relations. Kafka was known to have an insatiable sexual urge throughout his life. I believe that Kafka unintentionally answers some questions about his unstable love life through how K treats and views women.
Below (respectively) are Kafka’s late girlfriend Dora Dymant, one of his mistresses Milena Jesenská-Pollak, followed by another well known mistress Grete Bloch
Further commentary on K’s demeanor towards women and what it says about Kafka’s views.
In “The Offices” and “The Uncle Leni” K encounters two more women, the young girl with the court usher and a family friend named Erna. The young woman baby sits K as he childishly becomes incapacitated at the Law Court Offices. He relies on her sympathy and care as he regains his strength. She is portrayed as a compassionate, trustworthy, and morally sound person as she comes to K’s rescue.Kafka’s motherly description of the woman makes her a likable character. Moreover, she is treated far differently from the family relative, whom K blows off. Despite his rude behavior, she still shows a motherly affection by lieing about receiving chocolates from him on her birthday. Despite K’s different reaction towards each character, the motherly nature of these characters is a tell-take sign of Kafka’s views on women.
Chapter nine of The Trial was an interesting penultimate chapter, one that perhaps best encapsulates the theme of the novel as a whole. The chapter begins with what appears to be a complete diversion from the main plot (not that the novel is particularly plot based as it is) in which K is assigned to guide an Italian visitor around the city. K’s paranoia instantly takes effect, as his brain whirs with thoughts that he is being intentionally drawn away from the office so that his boss can fire him. As in another of Kafka’s works, The Metamorphosis, the main character appears more intent on maintaining good standing at work, than focusing on the true pressing matters at hand. However, after introducing the Italian foreigner, he is later dropped from the chapter entirely, his visit simply a means of getting K inside of the church. K’s experience within the church is rather fascinating, and helps to tie this chapter with the concepts presented earlier in the book. After the Italian tourist fails to arrive, K is called forth by a prison chaplain inside the church, who knows K and the details of his case. The chaplain is another employee of the law, further illustrating the law’s presence in every facet of society. However, the true core of the chapter lies in the chaplain’s parable regarding the man and the gateway to the law. It was a unique touch that the characters analyze the parable with each other inside the text, which makes the end of the chapter feel like an English class being played out in a fictional setting. The parable is similar to the novel as a whole. It is short but dense, seemingly simple, yet ultimately mufti-faceted, and ambiguous in the themes it relates. K is almost like the character in the story, forced to wait by the gates of justice, as death grows ever nearer. The law manipulates people, forcing others to play by its rules, as insane as its rules may be.
I completely agree with what dres032 has to say about the ever-increasing commentary on law Kafka produces throughout the book. As the chapters develop and one gets to understand K’s character more, a certain revelation begins to take place. Kafka is trying to show the intrinsic flaws in the idea of law, and ultimately the helplessness that such law creates. This may seem rather obvious due to the fact that yes, the entire book begins on the premise that K is being charged without knowing what for. This seems pretty helpless. However, Kafka truly goes further with this idea than can be first recognized. Law is restrictions. It is rules, it is consequences, and essentially it is control. K feels as if he is being treated unfairly by the law because of his current situation, but in reality he as well as everyone has been arguably treated unfairly by the law since its origins. Law puts restrictions on the subjective. It is something one is born into and generally cannot escape, and in this it is unfair. I began to notice the immensity of Kafka’s commentary when Block was introduced. Block acts as a reflection or vision of what K will inevitably become, or at least a version of it. Block is essentially K’s fate. Whether K’s trial takes place, his charges are dropped, he is convicted, anything at all- he is still forever going to be at the mercy of the law, and of this issue. The law is what determines fate, and it determines this for the masses. Ultimately I feel that there is an overwhelming irony in what Kafka has to say; the law was ideally created in order to maintain justice and truth, yet because of the human condition it does nearly the opposite. Kafka is trying to demonstrate these ideas in the most obscure way possible, giving little details and various possibilities, in order to really emphasize how universal this theme is. Kafka shows through K’s story the idea that law, intrinsically, can never be fair. There will always be human flaw, connections, people getting ahead, people falling behind. Law is a game that everyone is forced to play, and the majority are subject to loose.
The Trial represents a fascinating viewpoint into Kafka’s personal attitude towards law and justice. Throughout the novel, the law is portrayed as an omniscient, suffocating force that is shrouded in a tangled web of bureaucracy. K attempts to escape from the law, but finds that it is unavoidable, a force ingrained within the very fabric of society. Kafka is not subtle in his condemnation of the law, its presence figuratively represented by the cloying air of the court house. The law ultimately makes K’s life a virtual prison. The law is everywhere, yet society remains unaware of its constant presence. The “law’s” presence can be a stranger passing through an apartment building, a man getting whipped in a random dark room, or the desperate look of one of the court’s victims, eager to escape the inescapable. The law lacks fairness, with innocence being inconsequential in the scheme of its complex machinations. K soon discovers this after learning that justice is only for those with personal connections to high ranking officials, or those who are able to manipulate and prolong the judgment process. Some view The Trial as frighteningly prophetic, a warning against the absolute power future dictators like Stalin and Hitler could wield in their fascist systems. Kafka however, points out that this unaccountability and unfairness in the legal system has long existed, temporarily obscured from those yet to experience it.