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In The Trial, Joseph K., an able and conscientious bank official and a bachelor, is awakened by bailiffs, who arrest him. The investigation in the magistrate's court turns into a squalid farce, the charge against him is never defined, and from this point the courts take no further initiative. But Joseph K. consumes himself in a search for inaccessible courts and for an acquittal from his unknown offense. He appeals to intermediaries whose advice and explanations produce new bewilderment; he adopts absurd stratagems; squalor, darkness, and lewdness attend his search. Resting in a cathedral, he is told by a priest that his protestations of innocence are themselves a sign of guilt and that the justice he is forced to seek must forever be barred to him. A last chapter describes his execution as, still looking around desperately for help, he protests to the last. This is Kafka's blackest work: evil is everywhere, acquittal or redemption is inaccessible, frenzied effort only indicates man's real impotence. --encyclopedia Britannica |
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Philosophical Movements
Censorship
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