Summary
The Trial by Franz Kafka is a philosophical fiction novel about a man named Joseph K. We are never given K.’s full last name, but it is presumed that K. is in part Kafka himself. Kafka’s Nihilistic philosophy which produced a perspective on life and social constructs as devoid of purpose reflects that of K.’s narrative life. K. who lives alone in an apartment and has a well established job at a Bank is arrested one morning without being told any information regarding his arrest. He is then under interrogation by the Examining Magistrate but rebuttals his first question with a speech of indignation. K. as he searches for answers expores the Law Offices while also experiencing and seeing strange practices of the system. K. eventually attains an Advocate, but even though he is presumedly trying to help, K. sees no progress and later dismisses him. He is also helped along the way by other characters that have connections with the court system. These people give K. ambiguous details regarding his trial and the authorities. These factors cause K. to be confused and concerned for how he should act toward his trial and what he should do. Knowledge of his charge, the rules, and the higher authorities is not certain therefore he can not decide what the right course of action is, if it exists. He finds out from the court painter that an absolute acquittal is impossible, and proposes his only options are to delay the verdict of his trial. At the end he is unexpectedly visited by two strangers who take him away and kill him.
Initial “Reading For”
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 remembered 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 read for in the memetic, I was distraught by the aesthetic emotion of this situation. It is hard to get past what doesn’t make sense. What I believed being arrested and on trial entails for a person didn’t mesh with what was happening in this man’s case. This was a projection which Jane Gallop defines as when “we read our own ideas in place of what the other person has written”(pg.10). The result was a constant tug of war between myself and the text, specifically it’s contradictions and ambiguous meanings. This caused a desire to force the text into something It wasn’t.
Values
Eventually I came to just accept the text for what it was without my projections because I realized my projections hindered me from actually getting the text. From reading what was actually on the page, instead of my preconceived prejudices. Leaving my projections behind I began to read thematically, to comprehend the texts structural values. Indicating positively a negatively charged sequences of the narrative revealed the controlling and opposing values. For example in chapter 8 K. decides to dismiss the services of his Advocate, telling him that it wasn’t his idea to hire him in the first place, “you must have noticed on my very first visit here, when I came with my uncle, that I did not take my case very seriously…Still my uncle insisted on my engaging a representative, and I did so to please him”(pg.172). Furthermore K. goes on to say how the Advocate has not upheld his position in defending him, “I waited with unceasing and growing expectancy for something to happen, and you did nothing whatever”(pg.173). The negative charge of this sequence reveals the controlling context: Blind obedience and submitting to injustice leads to suffering and impotence.
With the Advocate dismissed whose “efforts were not enough” he feels he has the freedom then to attain progress on his trial, he can take “more energetic steps in this case”(pg.172). This positively charged sequence reveals the controlling purpose: Fighting for truth and justice brings you freedom and potence.
Afterword the Advocate shows K. how his other clients like Block are treated in comparison to his treatment. He calls for Block who has been waiting to see him but then says “you’ve come at the wrong time”. Block responds by asking if he was not called and in fear “thrusting out his hands as if to guard himself, and preparing to back out”(pg.176). The Advocate reluctantly tells him he can stay. Block afraid of the Advocates persecution “began to tremble in earnest” described as if the Advocate “had threatened to have him beaten instead”(pg.177). This reveals the The opposing context: Defying the law of the authority leads to persecution and relinquishment of your freedom.
The Advocate tells Block of the negative responses on his case by the judges causing Block to panic. The Advocate tells Block “Don’t get into a panic at every word. If you do I’ll never tell you anything” (pg.181). Furthermore to reassure Block says “You’re still alive, you’re still under my protection. Your panic is senseless” (pg.181). This is the opposing purpose: Trusting in the higher authority and going along with their judgement leads to safety and approval.
The Premise is then formed by the controlling and opposing values. Robert Mckee says the premise is “the idea that inspires the writer’s desire to create a story…it is an open ended question”(pg. 112). Therefore, what happens when an absurd bureaucracy blames an innocent man?
Genre
The philosophical genre pertains to The Trial. This genre, also called a novel of ideas, addresses questions that are proposed in philosophy such as the purpose of society and life. Kafka believed in the philosophy of Nihilism that proposes that life is without meaning and or that nothing really exists. Kafka proposes a world in which people are instantly supposed guilty when innocent, are enslaved to their case for the rest of their lives trying to defend themselves, under the control of a higher authority they have no knowledge of, with lawyers who defend without any effect, and the possibility of acquittal being impossible. So what is the point? This human condition that Kafka purposes seems to be without one, that K.’s existence is devoid of meaning as well as the absurd Law system in control of him. An example of this hopeless condition would be the story prefacing the law the priest tells K. in relation to his situation, called “Before the Law”. This story tells of a man who wants admittance through a door to the law but the door keeper tells him he cannot enter at the moment, although entrance is possible. 
The man tries ways to enter including bribing the guard, but the guard says “I take this only to keep you from feeling that you have left something undone”(pg.198). The man waits for years and as he is about to die asks the guard why no one else has tried to enter. The guard says “No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it”(pg. 198). This story concludes the foolish nature of the man who was deluded to think the law was attainable at all and that his purpose in life was to try and achieve it.
Another possible genre that The Trial falls under would be dystopian. Dystopia refers to a society that is under oppression, suffering, overcrowding. While the reader does not gain concrete evidence of K.’s over all world to be dystopian, K.’s individual world does encompass these traits after being arrested. He is under constant oppression by the bureaucracy. For example in his speech at his interrogation he expresses this oppression saying “So warders try to steal the clothes off the bodies of the people they arrest, the Inspectors break into strange houses, and innocent men, instead of being fairly examined, are humiliated in the presence of public assemblies”(pg.46). Secondly K. suffers physiologically when he thinks about his case, he experiences “intense exhaustion…when all these thoughts kept running at random through his head” and “exaggerated anxiety”(pg.118-119). Not only exhaustion and anxiety but pessimism, “Once more his train of thought had led him into self-pity”(pg.121). Lastly K. suffers physically from an overcrowded claustrophobic feeling at times. The Interrogation Chamber had a claustrophobic feeling as people standing inside couldn’t even stand up straight “their heads and backs knocking against the ceiling”, K. said because it was so packed with people made him felt the room’s “air was too thick for him”(p.38). When K. visits the law court offices in the attics of a building he undergoes this same feeling as the “hot roof-beams make the air dull and heavy” causing K. to feel faint (p.66).
Form
The repetitive form is a principle or idea that carries on throughout the narrative but under new context, changing each time. What repeats in The Trial is an offering of help to K. on his case. This is noticeable because of the repetition of semes used in the people’s communication with K. that indicate their desire to help. This first person to offer help is Fraulein Burstner who is interested in the court of law and will be clerical staff in a lawyer’s office, she says “why not? I like to make good use of my knowledge” (p.29). The second person is the wife of a Law-Court Attendant, who says “I’ll help you” as she refers to giving him information pertaining to the Examining Magistrate (p.51). The third person is his uncle who is concerned for him and their family. Having influential connections suggests a friend who he attended school with, “we’ll drive straight to Huld, the Advocate” (p.93). The fourth person who he comes across is the manufacturer who came to his office on business and later imparts information on a painter Titorelli who used to work for the court. The manufacturer tells K. “I thought to myself- Titorelli might be of some use to you, he knows many judges” (p.128). Titorelli being the fifth person tells him of his meeting with the manufacture openly suggesting “let the man come and see me some time” and is glad he came and gives him information(p.138). Lastly a priest arranges to meet with K. to discuss his case “…you are the man I seek” and that it is not going well “do you know that your case is going badly” (p.194). The pattern stays consistent, the offer of help is repeated while each time the one offering it changes.
The syllogistic form determines what the conclusion is after the premise of the narrative has been formed. The steps taken to get to the conclusion only makes sense because of the established premise in the beginning, therefore the audience as Kenneth Burke puts it “feels the rightness of the conclusion”(pg.124). For K. his conclusion was a failure to defend his innocence, and a shameful death. To the reader’s dismay this does feel to be the right conclusion as each part of the narrative built upon the hopelessness of his case. His case was hopeless from the start, from never being given an answer to “how can I be under arrest?” when innocent, to being told by Titorelli the court painter that he has “never encountered one case of definite acquittal”, to being told by the priest that he is already “held to be guilty” and all the while he toils to try and find unattainable answers to save his humanity against an indistinct law system(pg.11,143,195). This reinforces the premise:what happens when an absurd bureaucracy blames an innocent man?
Intertextual Codes
The semic code gives meaning to a person, place or thing, signifying it by repetitively using semes, which are words and phrases around it. The places where the Law is conducted such as the Interrogation Chamber, the attics of the law offices, and Titorelli’s studio in the law attics are surrounded by common semes indicating its significance. For example in the Interrogation Chamber, that is full of people awaiting him, K. feels stifled by the air saying it was “too thick for him” and reluctantly enters(pg.38). In the Law offices he experiences this similar instance, “hot roof-beams make the air dull and heavy” and suddenly K. becomes weak and faints. To try and relieve K. a girl opens a skylight for air but instead “much soot fell in”(pg.66). K. says this hasn’t happened to him before and a man says “It’s only here that this gentleman feels upset, not in other places”(pg.67). This man is correct since K. had the same reaction in the Interrogation Chamber and he later has it again in Titorelli’s studio. When K. enters the studio he immediately feels stifled by the air saying it wasn’t the heat but the “stuffy, oppressive atmosphere”(pg.138). K. asks Titorelli if they could open a window but Titorelli says the window can’t be opened. After this K. comes to a realization “that he had been hoping all this time that either the painter or himself would suddenly go over to the window and fling it open” and to just get this air he would gulp “mouthfuls of fog” (pg.145). Titorelli later shows K. some painting kept under his bed that make the air worse being “thickly covered with dust” which K. felt “almost blinded and choked”(pg.151). K. walks into the law offices connected to Titorelli’s studio and breathes in its air “compared to which the air in the studio was refreshing”(pg.153). These semes define the places of law as stifling, thick, heavy, stuffy, followed by fainting, and feelings of being choked, blinded and under oppression. The semic code therefore creates a relationship of power between K. and the Law, which Kaja Silverman defines as “certain strategies for understanding persons and places which are really ways of signifying and controlling those persons and places”(pg. 254). This relationship forms into the symbolic code which creates an irresolvable opposition. The language describing the air is symbolic of the bureaucracy, and its power over K. and his perspective as being under its oppression. This ultimately then reinforces the controlling and opposing values of the premise as K. resembles the controlling values and the bureaucracy the opposing values.
The Trial encompasses the Hermeneutic code which proposes, maintains, and resolves enigmas. The thematization, the definition of a person, place, or thing as mysterious occurs before the proposed enigma. This begins with the narrator telling us in the first sentence that Joseph K. “without having done anything wrong was arrested one fine morning”(pg.7). This continues with his breakfast failing to appear, which has “never happened before”(pg. 7). Then a man entering his bedroom “whom he had never seen before”(pg.7). The words and phrases, that surround these instances create the thematization of mystery. Next is the dawning of the actual mystery, which in K. ’s case is together also a request for answer. When told he is being arrested he asks “But what for?” but he never given an answer as to why(pg.9). After is the formulation of the enigma, that which maintains the mystery by amplifying it. What maintains the mystery of K’s case is the continuous partial answers given to him by those who help him throughout the narrative, regarding his trial and the bureaucracy system in control. Lastly, the conclusion to the narrative, does not directly resolve the enigma, as K’s questions are never answered. Although the end proposes a resolution by means of interpretation as to that of K’s life having been meaningful or meaningless depending on the role taken on by the reader.
Narrator/Addressee
The narrator of The Trail calls the reader to accept the world K. lives in and the circumstances he has come under as real. This is difficult for the reader’s role as the hypothetical authorial audience. The authorial audience holds certain beliefs and knowledge about the world and reality, using it to understand the text. From this perspective the reader has trouble understanding the text because it is contradictory to reality, for example being found guilty when innocent, this makes The Trial appear absurd. What the reader has to do is take on new beliefs in order to accept the text, this is the fictional narrative audience. Peter Rabinowitz explains this, “what sort of person would I have to pretend to be-what would I have to know and believe-if I wanted to take this work of fiction as real?”(pg.128). The narrative audience has to know about the Nihilistic philosophy that drives Kafka’s work in order to really understand the text. To take the work as real this audience has to pretend to adopt Nihilistic beliefs to make sense of the narrative. The narrative audience has the ability to believe that what happens to K. could happen in real life, though not necessarily to really believe it. The ideal narrative audience though, does in fact agree with the narrator and believes him. Being able to become the ideal narrative audience depends on the ethics or interpretation of the reader. In my readerly experience I was not able to become the ideal narrative audience, as I chose to interpret my own way. Kafka leaves the end open to interpretation, the audience can accept his view or not. He does not strictly end the book on a meaningless, hopeless, Nihilistic note. At the end as K. is being prepared for execution he sees a house with a person holding a light who opens a window and stretches out a hand. The light, an open window, and a stretched out hand all connote hopefulness. K. ponders what this hope may be is it “a good man”, “someone who wanted to help” suggesting hope for his humanity as he dies an inhumane death, his last words being “like a dog”(pg.210-211) Since there was a lack of respect for the significance of his humanity his last words conclude Kafka’s nihilistic outlook, that there was no meaning to his existence and the world he lived in. Which causes him to shame his behavior for having thought there was such meaning, “it was if he wanted the shame of it to outlive him”(p.211). Still Kafka leaves that idea of meaning as a possibility even though K. sees it as “faint and insubstantial”(p.210).
Final Reflection
My readerly role has changed after developing as a reader in this class. I first began as a memetically driven reader, reading to please my emotions and expectations of given genres. For the first time I approached my reading in a way that I was able to read past my projections by exploring the methods and discussing them with the group. It particularly helped to read out of my comfort zone as it created the opportunity for me to realize my projections were there due to the conflicts that arose from the particular readings. Furthermore now I can read with the conscious decision to read thematically and while taking on the roles the the narrative intends for it’s audience.
Works Cited
Burke, Kenneth. “Lexicon Rhetoricae.” Counter-Statement. 1931. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1957. 123-183.
Gallop, Jane. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum
Theorizing (Fall, 2000): 7-17.
Kafka, Franz. The Trial. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, Vintage, 2009.
McKee, Robert. “Structure and Meaning.” Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the
Principles of Screenwriting. New York: Regan, 1997. 110-131.
Rabinowitz, Peter. “Truth In Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.” Critical Inquiry. 4.1
(1977): 121-141.
Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. New York: Oxford UP, 1983.
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