The Trial by Franz Kafka is a philosophical fiction novel about a man named Joseph K. who is arrested without being told any information regarding the arrest, K. is in constant demand for answers during the process of his trial.
Anthony Perkins playing K. when a stranger (Franz one of his warders), enters his bedroom.
When I first began to read this novel I came with an image of Anthony Perkins as I had viewed Orson Welles adaptation of the novel several years ago. This was a hindrance in getting the text at first, I pictured not what the text was telling me but what the film showed me, instantly producing a mimetic driven reading. Luckily I only remember the opening segment of the movie and after the first chapter it became easy to push the film out of my mind and let the text in, but as I did this another challenge made itself known. As K. kept asking questions, I too kept asking questions. Why would he be arrested without an explanation? What authority is persecuting him? Is he really innocent or is he guilty, and of what? This is what I’m reading for in the memetic, I’m distraught by the aesthetic emotion of this situation. It is hard to get past what doesn’t make sense in my mind. What I believe being arrested and on trial entails for a person doesn’t mesh with what is happening in this man’s case. This is a projection in which I’m accusing the text of being wrong which prevents me from getting the text on it’s own terms. As I tried to get the text I realized there were contradictions everywhere, that is why I constantly felt something was wrong with the text. This leads me to the premise: What happens when injustice controls humanity?
This premise is formed by the controlling and opposing values of the text. On page 16 K. says “who accuses me?” and “I demand a clear answer to these questions” in which he is rebutted by the Inspector “You are laboring under a great delusion” and furthermore explains K.’s behavior as giving an “unfavorable impression”. This negatively charged sequence reveals the context of the controlling value: Fighting injustice causes persecution.
K. being questioned by the inspector, the warders and K.’s colleagues from the bank being present.
K. stops arguing and decides to do something sensible by calling his advocate. This action is positively charged which forms the controlling purpose: Conforming to the rules leads to approval. Immediately as he decides this the Inspector says “Certainly, but I don’t see what sense there would be in that”(pg.17). K. responds in irritation “You ask me to be sensible and you carry on in the most senseless way…” which concludes the opposing context: Obedience can subject one to manipulation and suffering (pg. 17). K. dismisses the phone call and walks over to the window seeing a crowd of people spectating his interactions with the inspector. Annoyed by the intrusion and lack of privacy he yells “Go away” which creates the opposing purpose: standing up for justice supports freedom (pg. 18).
I briefly want to approach the theory In Culler’s book The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. He addresses in chapter 9 the hierarchy between story (action and events) and Discourse (presentation and narration) of a narrative. His example of Oedipus fits nicely in correlation with this narrative. Instead of a meaning or discourse being the product of a prior event, in this case the event is the product of discourse. As Culler analyzes Oedipus he determines that the play’s action “is the revelation of this awful deed, but we are never given proof”(pg. 174). As in The Trial the audience is aware of his arrest for something he’s accused of doing, but is not given any proof to this man’s supposed guilt that is driving the narrative. Instead of being told his crime, the event, and then discourse follow in signifying meaning, we are given signification in which events proceed from.
How Writers Read... 
As we dicussed in class, the initial controlling/opposing ideas you mentioned here were a little off. We can see the general “theme” from what you said, but I’ll try to elaborate on a more accurate purpose and context. The context of the controlling idea should be more like this: “Blind obedience and submitting to injustice leads to suffering and exploitation.” Therefore, the purpose would be more like: “Fighting for truth and justice brings you freedom and righteousness.”
The opposing controlling value’s context would then be “Defying the law of the authority leads to persecution and relinquishment of your freedom”, so the purpose would be “Trusting in the higher authority and going along with their judgement leads to safety and approval”. These might not be entirely right, but I think they’re pointing in a closer direction?
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This book has been rough and I kind of needed a couple days to step away and figure out this premise. I think the book operates under many. In our value chart in class, which I conveniently didn’t write down, we decided that the premise was something like, “What happens when the justice system doesn’t protect the innocent?” We could generalize it more and it could ask the question, what happens when the justice system fails, etc etc.
I would agree with that. But, as I mentioned, there are so many facets to this book that I’d like to give a premise of its own. I think the premise we decided on in class works well with what I said in blog 2, where I called the book dystopian. But maybe we can reference where Cayla went in blog 4. “What happens when it doesn’t matter what you do, and you suffer no matter what?”
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