Analysis of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial”
“The Trial” by Franz Kafka is a novel of total meaningless living, wandering through court labyrinths and meaningless death. It was written in 1912 and published posthumously in 1925 by his friend Max Brod. Its manuscript was left unfinished and the author left his covenant to his friend to destroy it after his death, therefore, the novel was not intended for printing. However, despite the author's last wish, his friend decided not to obey him and not fulfill it. His friend’s excuse was that Kafka wanted to destroy earlier manuscripts also, but under his strong influence and with much conviction, they were printed. In this novel, Franz Kafka describes the fate of an accused man in the world of institutions …show more content…
who seeks his mistake starting from the morning of the detention until the end of the novel. Unlike the short story "In the penal colony" where the cover-up of a mistake is necessary in order to maintain the apparatus of the law, in "The Trial" this phenomenon is colored by a metaphysical dimension. All Kafka's texts contain the moment of aporia, but the puzzle in this novel does not require dismissal because it would reduce the crime of a banal crime story where the culprit is seeking the punishment, or the innocent sustains a punishment for an unbecoming crime. This is more about an existential anxiety, which through the attitude towards the appliance of justice should speak about the general way in which the individual learns to deal with …show more content…
Kafka raised his voice against the small people who sought the mercy of the great. Kafka somehow secretly threads absurdity of existence in this novel, which will later inspire Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre to lay the foundations of existentialism. Regarding the theme, it is the hell of human intellectual awareness in the fight against bureaucracy and the evil imposed by power.”We have to recognize the futility of trying to work with the world of the Court that simply will not relate to self’s faculties. Life is only a nightmare because there are such inscrutable forces beyond our control that no way of solution can protect the self from them. Annihilation is not a choice but a fact of alienation which has been left to us, whether we accept it or continue to struggle against it. The Trial represents a simultaneity in which disparate historical, disciplinary discourses collide a moment of rupture, exchange, and confrontation, only possible in that precise historical envelope from which the author spoke. It represents a singular, historical moment at the threshold of legal and disciplinary transformation, a moment that fluctuated between the archaic modalities of linguistic-based discipline and modern surveillance. Kafka challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of episodic or sovereign
“The Trial” by Franz Kafka is a novel of total meaningless living, wandering through court labyrinths and meaningless death. It was written in 1912 and published posthumously in 1925 by his friend Max Brod. Its manuscript was left unfinished and the author left his covenant to his friend to destroy it after his death, therefore, the novel was not intended for printing. However, despite the author's last wish, his friend decided not to obey him and not fulfill it. His friend’s excuse was that Kafka wanted to destroy earlier manuscripts also, but under his strong influence and with much conviction, they were printed. In this novel, Franz Kafka describes the fate of an accused man in the world of institutions …show more content…
who seeks his mistake starting from the morning of the detention until the end of the novel. Unlike the short story "In the penal colony" where the cover-up of a mistake is necessary in order to maintain the apparatus of the law, in "The Trial" this phenomenon is colored by a metaphysical dimension. All Kafka's texts contain the moment of aporia, but the puzzle in this novel does not require dismissal because it would reduce the crime of a banal crime story where the culprit is seeking the punishment, or the innocent sustains a punishment for an unbecoming crime. This is more about an existential anxiety, which through the attitude towards the appliance of justice should speak about the general way in which the individual learns to deal with …show more content…
Kafka raised his voice against the small people who sought the mercy of the great. Kafka somehow secretly threads absurdity of existence in this novel, which will later inspire Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre to lay the foundations of existentialism. Regarding the theme, it is the hell of human intellectual awareness in the fight against bureaucracy and the evil imposed by power.”We have to recognize the futility of trying to work with the world of the Court that simply will not relate to self’s faculties. Life is only a nightmare because there are such inscrutable forces beyond our control that no way of solution can protect the self from them. Annihilation is not a choice but a fact of alienation which has been left to us, whether we accept it or continue to struggle against it. The Trial represents a simultaneity in which disparate historical, disciplinary discourses collide a moment of rupture, exchange, and confrontation, only possible in that precise historical envelope from which the author spoke. It represents a singular, historical moment at the threshold of legal and disciplinary transformation, a moment that fluctuated between the archaic modalities of linguistic-based discipline and modern surveillance. Kafka challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of episodic or sovereign