The Trial by Franz Kafka has been following the story of K., who is being put on the titular trial because… Well, we don’t know. I have gone through the book with my group, and one of the biggest mysteries that were left pondering is the reason of K. being put on trial in the first place. The officers just come in and tell him that he has been called to stand trial. Doesn’t explain what laws K. has broken, or even take him to prison to await it. It just happens. K. doesn’t try to fight back against this supposedly false accusation. So why would Kafka write like this? What was he trying to express? Thinking about this mystery made me realize that the Hermeneutic code was used in this book.
The Hermeneutic Code is used to propose and ultimately solve enigma’s in stories as it’s intertextual strategy. How is it being used as a strategy in this book? Well, it’s quite simple: The Trial itself is the enigma.
At the beginning of the book, warders arrive and tell K. that he is under arrest. When K. asks why, we expect that we’d be given a reason for this. Instead, the warders state that they “are not authorized to tell him,” (Kafka 9). Now while this could be seen as nothing out of the ordinary or something we would get an explanation to later. You would be wrong. We never get ANY explanation on why K. is sent to trial. All we do get is the first line of the first page of the story: “Someone must have been spreading slander about Josef K., for one morning he was arrested, though he had done nothing wrong.”
I also noticed something about K. that also plays to the semic code. When he goes to the court offices, he takes a moment to note that they are airless and shabby. Why do I bring this up? Because it correlates with a trait that I took note of with our protagonist: He believes himself higher than all of this. While the constant reference to the shabby airless offices is seen most often, he makes remarks that make him look a bit pompous. In chapter 2, he notes the building where the court was to be held “displayed on both sides houses exactly alike, tall gray apartment tenements inhabited by poor people” (Kafka 42). Would a guy who is being put on trial for a ‘crime’ he didn’t commit think like this?
There could be other codes that are contained within Kafka’s story, but these two are the ones that I found most prominent. As we approach the end of this book, I have a feeling that while we might not get the answers we are seeking, I do feel the conclusion will be a culmination of the two codes.
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So, I figured I’d tackle the proairetic code for my reply but now I have regrets. It’s very hard to differentiate much, because isn’t everything a product of what happened before it? I think there is a gap in this book, which is obviously very purposeful, but I don’t think it even matters for the point of the book. The book starts with an effect. As far as we know, and K knows, there is no cause for his having to be arrested or even being killed at the end of the books. In fact, it seems like this book is full of many effects, but no real causes at all, which doesn’t make much sense. I’m not sure if that means the proairetic code isn’t a fit for The Trial or if I’m overthinking it or if I’m onto something.
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I want to elaborate on the hermeneutic code you address. I think that the thematization, the definition of a person, place, or thing as mysterious which occurs before the proposed enigma starts with the narrator telling us in the first sentence that Joseph K. was arrested without having done something wrong. Then continues with his breakfast failing to appear, which has never happened before. Then a stranger entering his bedroom telling him his breakfast won’t come and that he better stay in his room. The words and phrases (semes) that surround these instances create the thematization of mystery. The dawning of the actual mystery is together also a request for answer. When he asks why he is being arrested he is not given an answer. The formulation of the enigma, what amplifies the mystery is in itself created by the continuous partial answers regarding his trial and the court system in control of him. These partial answers are given by those who help him throughout the narrative. As for the disclosure I am a bit uncertain for I feel there was no end to the enigma, at least directly concerning his trial, but perhaps interpretively? I’d like to briefly mention that the semic code sets up the relationship of power of the court over K. which reinforces the controlling and opposing values of the narrative.
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