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Franz Kafka (1883-1924) has been called everything from a modernist to an existentialist, a fantasy writer to a realist. His work almost stands alone as its own subgenre, and the adjective ‘Kafkaesque’ – whose meaning, like the meaning of Kafka’s work, is hard to pin down – has become well-known even to people who have never read a word of Kafka’s writing. Perhaps inevitably, he is often misinterpreted as being a gloomy and humourless writer about nightmarish scenarios, when this at best conveys only part of what he is about.
Three of Kafka’s works stand as his most representative. It depends on how we choose to approach him as to whether we favour ‘The Metamorphosis’ (his long short story, which we have analysed here, about a man who wakes one morning to discover he has been transformed into a ‘vermin’), The Castle (a quest with no end-goal – and no castle), or The Trial. But perhaps it is The Trial, most of all, that is responsible for the most prevalent meaning of the term ‘Kafkaesque’.
Before we offer an analysis of this obscure and endlessly provocative novel, here’s a brief summary of the plot of Kafka’s The Trial.
Josef K., the chief cashier in a bank, is arrested one morning by two mysterious agents. However, they refuse to tell him what crime he is accused of. He is not thrown into prison pending his trial, but allowed to carry on with his day-to-day affairs until summoned by the Committee of Affairs.
His landlady, Frau Grubach, suggests that the trial may relate to an immoral relationship with his neighbour, Fräulein Bürstner, so he goes to visit her and ends up kissing her. He then finds out that a lodger from a neighbouring room, a Fräulein Montag, has moved in with Fräulein Bürstner, and he suspects this has been done in order that Bürstner might distance herself from any involvement with Josef K.
Next, he is ordered to appear at the court in person on Sunday, though he is not informed of the date of his hearing or the precise room in which it is to take place. He eventually locates the correct room in the attic, and is informed that he’s late for the meeting. He tries to defend himself, pointing out the baselessness of the accusation against him, but this only riles the authorities further.
So he next tries to quiz the judge about the nature of his case, but the judge’s wife attempts to seduce him. The judge then takes K. on a tour of the court’s offices. Then, things take an even more bizarre turn as K. stumbles upon the two anonymous agents who arrested him at the start of the novel. They are being whipped by a man because of what K. said at the attic hearing. K., however, attempts to intercede and plea on their behalf, but the man continues to whip them.
Josef K. receives a visit from his uncle, who is concerned about the rumours surrounding K. and the trial. He introduces his nephew to Herr Huld, a lawyer who is confined to his bed and looked after by a young nurse named Leni. Leni seduces K, and when his uncle discovers that K. accepted the woman’s advances, he is annoyed by his nephew’s behaviour and thinks it will hamper his trial.
Realising that Huld is an unreliable advocate for his cause, K. seeks the help of Titorelli, the court painter. Titorelli agrees to help him, but is aware that the process is not favourable to people and Josef K. will find it difficult to get himself acquitted. K. decides to represent himself.
On his way to Huld’s to dismiss the lawyer from his case, he meets Rudi Block, another of Huld’s clients, who offers K. some advice. Block’s own case has been ongoing for five years and he has lost virtually everything in the process: money, his business, and his morals (he, too, is sexually involved with Leni).
Josef K. is tasked with accompanying an important Italian client to the city’s cathedral, where K. realises that the priest, rather than giving a general sermon, is addressing him directly. The two men discuss a famous fable (published separately as ‘Before the Law’), in which a doorman stands before a door leading to ‘the law’ but refuses a man entry. The man waits by the door until the day of his death, when he asks the doorman why nobody else has tried to gain entry. The doorman then reveals that this door was meant only for that one man, and that he is now going to shut it.
The priest thinks this fable represents Josef K.’s situation, although many people have different ideas about what the story is supposed to mean, and K. and the priest disagree over its ultimate meaning. The day before Josef K.’s thirty-first birthday, two men arrive at his apartment and lead him outside, where they stab him to death, killing him ‘like a dog’.
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