The Abstract
This research discusses the novel The Trial by Franz kafka through the theory of existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical theory that is centered upon the analysis of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The notion is that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature. Existentialists as Sartre and Camus have developed has some themes as the absurdity of the world, the contingency of existence, the nightmare of inter subjectivity, and the political oppression. This research is an investigation of the existentialist novel.
Introduction
This research discusses the theory of existentialism by applying it to the novel The Trial by Franz Kafka. It is a detection of the existential novel. Existentialism is a philosophical theory that studies the human subject not merely the subject which thinks, but the acting, feeling, living human individual . It is primarily connected with the certain 19th and 20th-century European philosophers who, despite serious doctrinal differences, shared the belief in that beginning of philosophical thinking. According to existentialism, existence is always particular and individual. It is primarily the problem of existence; it is, therefore, also the investigation of the meaning of being. That investigation is frequently faced with diverse possibilities, from which the existentialist has to make a selection, which he must then commit himself to. Because those possibilities are constructed upon the individual’s relationships with things and with other humans, existence is always in a concrete
Existentialism is against any doctrine that views human beings as the demonstration of an absolute or of an infinite substance. Thus, it opposes the most forms of idealism, such as those that accent consciousness, spirit, reason, idea, or over soul. It is against any doctrine that sees in human beings some given and complete reality that must be determined into its elements in order to be acknowledged. It is thus against any form of objectivism or scientism, since those approaches accent the dense reality of external fact. In addition, existentialism is opposed to any form of necessitarianism; for existence is established upon possibilities from among which the individual may choose and through which he can project himself. Moreover, existentialism is against any solipsism or any epistemological idealism, because existence, which is a connection with other beings, always expands beyond itself, toward the being of those entities; it is transcendence. Starting from such bases, existentialism can take various and contrasting directions. In the view of the existentialist the individual’s starting point is defined by the existential attitude or a sense of disorientation, confusion, or dread in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
The Trail is about an ambitious, young bank official named Joseph K. who is arrested by two guards, although he has committed no crime. The morning happens to be that of his thirtieth birthday. One year later, on the morning of his thirty-first birthday, two guards again come for K. They take him to a quarry outside of town and execute him in the name of the Law. Josef lets them. K. is not a hero, he lives in authenticity, it is actually guilty. Accused, wrongly maybe, he eventually gives up and is convinced that he is guilty. While he could run away, flee his trial, Josef like modern man prefers to be killed, deserting all desire to live. He was shot down like a dog because he lets himself be controlled by the society which has fixed, objectified, riveted him to his guilt. At first glance, the case is a review of the judicial system, this machine which crushes anonymous individuals. The whole system, is considered dominated by corruption and bureaucracy. But a closer inspection relates to other themes in Kafka: the absurdity, the inhumanity of the modern world, totalitarianism, alienated subjectivity. This paper is the investigation of the existentialist novel, because even if Sartre and Camus would not have written The Trial, most of the themes developed by the existentialist philosophies are depicted: the absurdity of the world, the contingency of existence, the nightmare of inter subjectivity, the political oppression, existentialist angst and existential alienation.
Discussion
The Trail is about a young bank official named Joseph K. who is arrested by two guards, although he has committed no crime. K. is furious and outraged. The morning was that of his thirtieth birthday. One year later, on the morning of his thirty-first birthday, two guards again come for K. They lead him to a quarry outside of town and kill him in the name of the Law. K. lets them. K. is an anti-hero, he lives in authenticity, it is actually guilty. Accused, wrongly perhaps, he eventually renounced, he is persuaded that he is guilty. While he could run away, flee his trial, K., like modern man prefers to be killed, he abandoned all desire to live. He was shot down like a dog because he lets himself be controlled by the society which has fixed, objectified, riveted him to his guilt. This paper is an investigation of the existentialist novel by investigating the themes of the existentialism theory in The Trail by Franz Kafka.
The theory of existentialism
Existentialism is the philosophical theory which holds that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity is necessary to grasp human existence. The philosophy of Existentialism is centered upon the analysis of existence and on the way humans find themselves existing in the world. Firstly, existence, According to existentialism, is always particular and individual. Secondly, Existence is mainly the problem of existence; it is, therefore, also the investigation of the meaning of being. Thirdly, That investigation is constantly faced with several possibilities, from among which the existent must make a selection, to which he must then commit himself. Fourthly, because those possibilities are developed by the individual’s relationships with things and with other humans, existence is always a concrete and historically determinate situation that limits or conditions choice. Humans are therefore called, in Martin Heidegger’s phrase, Dasein (“there being”) because they are characterized by the fact that they exist, or are in the world and inhabit it. With respect to the first point, that existence is particular, existentialism is against any doctrine that views human beings as the demonstration of an absolute or of an infinite substance. It is thus against most forms of idealism, such as those that accent Consciousness, Spirit, Reason, Idea, or Over-soul. Second, it is against any doctrine that detects in human beings some given and complete reality that must be resolved into its elements in order to be known or contemplated. It is thus against any form of objectivism or scientism, since those approaches accent the crass reality of external fact. Third, existentialism is against any form of necessity; for existence is composed of possibilities from among which the individual may choose and through which he can project himself. And, finally, with respect to the fourth point, existentialism is against any solipsism or any epistemological idealism-holding that the objects of knowledge are mental- because existence, which is the relationship with other beings, always expands beyond itself, toward the being of those entities; it is, so to speak, transcendence. Starting from such bases, existentialism can take diverse and contrasting directions. It can assert the transcendence of being with respect to existence, and, by holding that transcendence to be the origin or base of existence, it can thus assume atheistic form. On the other hand, it can hold that human existence, posing itself as a problem, proposes itself with absolute freedom, creating itself by itself, thus assuming to itself the function of God. As such, existentialism presents itself as a radical atheism. Or it may insist on the finitude of human existence, on the limits inherent in its possibilities of projection and choice. As such, existentialism demonstrates itself as humanism. Furthermore, existentialist doctrines concentrate on several aspects of existence. They concentrate, firstly, on the problematic character of the human situation, through which the individual is continually confronted with diverse possibilities or alternatives, among which he may choose and on the basis of which he can project his life. Secondly, the doctrines concentrate on the phenomena of that situation and especially on those that are negative or baffling, such as the concern or preoccupation that dominates the individual because of the dependence of all his possibilities upon his relationships with things and with other people; the dread of death or of the failure of his projects; the guilt inherent in the limitation of choices and in the responsibilities that derive from making them; the boredom from the repetition of situations; and the absurdity of his dangling between the infinity of his aspirations and the finitude of his possibilities. Thirdly, the doctrines concentrate on the inter subjectivity that is inherent in existence and is apprehended either as a personal relationship between two individuals, I and thou, such that the thou may be another person or God, or as an impersonal relationship between the anonymous mass and the individual self deprived of any authentic communication with others. Fourthly, existentialism concentrates on ontology ontology, on some doctrine of the general meaning of being, which can be approached in any of a number of ways: through the analysis of the temporal structure of existence; through the etymologies of the most common words—on the supposition that in ordinary language being itself is disclosed, at least partly; through the rational interpretation of existence by which it is possible to catch a glimpse, through ciphers or symbols, of the being of the world, of the soul, and of God; through existential psychoanalysis that makes conscious the primal “project” in which existence consists; or, finally, through the analysis of the fundamental modality, to which all the aspects of existence conform. There is, in the fifth place, the therapeutic value of existential analysis that permits, on the one hand, the liberating of human existence from the beguilements or debasements to which it is subject in daily life and, on the other, the guiding of human existence toward its authenticity, as toward a relationship that is well-grounded on itself, and with other humans, with the world, and with God. The various forms of existentialism may also be differentiated on the basis of language, which is a manifestation of the cultural traditions to which they belong and which often explains the differences in terminology among various authors. The principal representatives of German existentialism in the 20th century were Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers; those of French personalistic existentialism were Gabriel Marcel and Jean Paul Sartre; that of French phenomenology were Maurice Merleau-Ponty; that of Spanish existentialism was Jose Ortega y Gusset; that of Russian idealistic existentialism was Nikolay Berdyayey; and that of Italian existentialism was Nicola Abbagnano. Furthermore existentialism is proposed as a philosophy of being. It distinguishes itself from the more reasonable philosophies, which deal only with the knowledge or language. It proposes existence together with the providence of a moving account of the agony of bring in the world. The spirit of existentialism has a long history. However it became a considerable movement in the second half of the twentieth century. Since it gained currency at the end of the second world war the term “existentialism” has mostly been correlated with a cultural movement that emerged from the wartime and spread through fiction and art as much as philosophy. The theoretical and other writers of this philosophy such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, are usually taken as central to this movement. Existentialism attempts to determine the self-conscious and self-determining character of a human life. By focusing on the features of existence, existentialism became the label for a certain stream of thought within the twentieth century. Considering its influence upon many writers, existentialism distinguished itself as not merely the philosophy of thinking subject but also as a philosophy of acting, feeling and living individually. According to Barret (1964), Existentialism is not a question of literary sensibility, but of philosophy itself. “The matters that concern the existentialists concern all men.”(p.9). Hence, it is possible to portray existentialism as a philosophy, which embraces every basic problem of human existence. In addition, it is applied in a philosophical manner to the position, in which man’s relationships with God and his function in the world are questioned. On this account, it possible to discuss Sartre’s most original contributions which suggest that humans are condemned to be free as the basis of his philosophy. As a matter of fact, his theory leads us to the point that there is no fixed human nature because man is the inventor of the very idea of nature: “man makes himself.” This capability to make oneself is accompanied by a responsibility for what one makes and it leads to considerable anguish because one must choose what to be on one’s own. The living human being is always in a situation of varying degrees of difficulty from which there is no escape. Sartre presumes that human beings have no essence before their existence. Thus, “existence precedes essence”. This forms , it proposes that a man lives (has existence)rather than is (has being or essence), and that every man’s experience of life is unique, radically different From everyone else’s and can be fathomed truly only in terms of his involvement in his life or commitment to it. In other Words, it can be affirmed that a man first exists and he defines himself after wards with his own subjectivity. The potency of this philosophy lies in its power to reduce reason in it size. Thus, it contrasts and rejects the earlier arguments, which has the idea that there is only one particular essence, which cannot be changed and it is called as “human nature”. This human nature holds humans essence at first and then assumes the existence, which attributes a great importance to God’s existence rather than the human.
The absurdity of the world
The existential philosophy is thought of as a result of a French movement from which Albert Camus came into being one of its the leading figures. He is mainly concerned with the basic human conditions in all his literary works. During a time of intense involvement with the French Resistance in the Second World War, he worked as a journalist. He continually manifested, Through his writings, practices to find the way to the absurdity of everyday life. Referred to as “the heart of existentialism” (S.Bronner, 1999), he also wrote on the need for a particular type of solidarity and morality in a universe which he believed did not have a God. Whereas ambiguities, alienation, and anxiety, are central in other authors, the key concept in his philosophy is the absurd, the confrontation between rational man and the indifferent universe. For him there is no Kierkegaardian leap, which he demeans as philosophical suicide; there is no appeal to transcendence, which he dismisses as pointless hope; nor is there any role in Camus’s philosophy for Sartre’s notion of existential commitment. Rather, the point is to keep the absurd alive. He calls the debate between the being of man and the objective world around him the “absurd”. The absurdity of man’s situation is clear to anyone who tries to exist as a subject in the world of object. Also, Sartre describes absurdity as that which is meaningless. He proposes that man’s existence is absurd since his contingency finds no eternal justification; there is no reason for either the world or himself to exist. He adopts his values, gives foundation to values by recognizing them as such, but there is no proof of the validity of the values he adopts. This also renders all our projects meaningless. Hence, absurdist believe that it is pointless to examine the meaning of life, since live has no meaning. Another potential response to absurdity is suicide, which Camus likewise rejects. He undertakes one of the aspects absurd theme in The Myth of Sisyphus. The question is whether suicide is the logical outcome of the realization and full comprehension of the meaninglessness of the world. Can a human Being continue to live, with the knowledge that his or her existence has no grounding or justification? In light of such questions, he examines into the sources of the feeling of the absurd, and into the question of whether suicide is the sensible thing to do, if life is indeed meaningless. For Camus, suicide cannot be considered as a practical solution since it represents a confession of the inability to live in a world devoid of meaning. He tries to find a solution to the issue by an appeal to human dignity. The revolt against the universe and its meaningless is the only truly human response for Camus . Only in revolt is the dignity of humanity preserved. Thus, as an allegory for his view he chooses the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is sentenced to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity, as a punishment for his crimes against the gods. His fruitless labor is a metaphor for meaningless human striving since, despite all his efforts. In the end the boulder always rolls down to the bottom, and he must start his bitter task again. Camus assumes that Sisyphus continues his task merely out of spite for all eternity, even though he knows it is doomed to failure. Sisyphus is, for Camus, a model for the human spirit which has the courage to continue until he becomes happy with it however, after this happiness is fulfilled, and he sets targets to follow. Thus, human life gets its meaning from expectations. It can be figured out that human life is meaningless and he endeavors to attribute a meaning to it in an unyielding manner. Human beings fail in life the moment they give up the thought of having a target. Since the life is absurd and meaningless, the belief in God has become questionable in terms of Camus’s philosophy. Human beings need order or unity in the universe, an order which could lend our existence a meaning and value. Hence, absurdity is, for Camus, the primary fact of human existence which presents the moral problem. According to Camus, we are faced by a universe essentially devoid of meaning. Thus, says Camus, we experience absurdity. The discrepancy between our hopes and desires, and the ultimate meaninglessness of our existence, leave us strangers in the world.
The investigation of the existentialist novel
Franz Kafka was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the twentieth century. A middle-class Jew based in Prague, his unique body of writing has become amongst the most influential in Western literature. The term Kafkaesque describes what are perceived as modern traumas as existential alienation, alienated subjectivity, existential angst, the contingency of existence, isolation insecurity, the labyrinth of state bureaucracy, the corrupt or whimsical abuse of totalitarian power, the impenetrable tangle of legal systems, the absurdity of the world, the inhumanity of the modern world, the nightmare of inter subjectivity, the political oppression, and the knock on the door in Joseph K.’s case, just before breakfast. The Trial is the existentialist novel by him. Existentialism views human life as absurd, lacking any meaning or reason objectively. But this does not indicate that man has nothing to do. He must acknowledge his own being and try to transcend it, reforming himself by his choices. According to Sartre reason is not important, but points out thatthere is only intuitive knowledgeand that our life is directed by subjective passion rather than by rationalism. But it is Camus who asserts the dominance of absurdity most. He also agrees that there is no reason for either the world or the individual to exist. This makes the mere existence of world itself a source of dead. Absurdity therefore, is the only bond between the world and man. Camus explains that it is not a question of rational or irrational; the world is only unreasonable and reason places man against the world. Man yearns for clarity, but the world has none to offer. This is precisely the situation in Kafka’s The Trial. The novel opens with “[s]omeone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested”(Kafka3). When his landlady’s cook does not bring his breakfast at the expected hour, Joseph K. rings for her. An unknown man knocks and steps into his bedroom. In the next room another man awaits. The men inform him that he has been arrested, and request that he return to his room and that they can offer no explanations. .We never know why he was arrested which is a representation of an irrational, absurd word where the suspect does not know the reason behind being arrested. Also, it presents the political oppression found in the novel, which are all features of the existentialist novel. One of the first thoughts that came to Josef K. considering the situation that it must be some sort of a joke “[h]e could have taken it all as a joke, a big joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or also perhaps be-cause today was his thirtieth birthday”(Kafka5), because the entire assumption is absurd. Associating something that seems logically absurd to a joke is an aspect of absurdism, proposing that the protagonist is living in an absurd world. The fact that he thought it was a joke is because the system of law has always, even under the most arbitrary abusive of regimes, been asserted upon the idea of being punished for having done something illegal or viewed as so. The main point of the novel would collapse if he was informed of his crime, because that will connect him to reality. Reflecting a reality taken as far to the breaking point as possible, indicating that it is an absurd world, is a feature of the existentialist novel. Also this passage “K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home”(kafka5), is an allegory for the totalitarian states, in which the political power consists of parties rather than official governments. It explains the very foundation of the absurd quality that nothing has prepared Josef k. for the sudden events that he is about to face.
K. is told that an inspection into his arrest will be held the following Sunday. When he arrives at the court’s address, he is baffled by the fact that the court seems to be located in an apartment building in a poor neighborhood “[t]he building was quite far down the street, it covered so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in particular was tall and long”(Kafka27). Since he wasn’t given a specific address, he wanders through the apartment buildings until he comes upon a washerwoman. She lets him into the court, which is convened in a large, cramped hall, K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two windowed room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people and nobody paid any attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its ceiling it was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and where the people could only stand bent down with their heads and their backs touching the ceiling. K. who found the air “too stuffy”(kafka29). After presenting himself to the examining magistrate, he complains for his treatment at his arrest, and accuses the court and its officials for corruption. When ending his speech, he noticed that the court is filled with court officials. The examining magistrate tells K. that he has seriously damaged his own case by his behavior “you have robbed yourself of the advantages that a hearing of this sort always gives to someone who is under arrest”(kafka37). K. refuses to discuss that matter and leaves the courtroom. This is a proxy world of anonymous judges where K. does not know the rules of engagement. His initiation does not come through well, yet he still feels it is best not to take the case too seriously. The novel presents us with a perfect picture of an irrational, absurd word where the location of the courthouse in a shabby, ugly, cramped, run-down and overpopulated apartment building. The apartment buildings seem to be disconnected from the typical grand prestigious court buildings, which serves to make it a symbol for illegitimacy. The atmosphere of it is oppressive, claustrophobic, and suffocating. In addition, the speech scene is clearly surreal, unfolding in a dreamlike fashion. The location itself is unreal: the top floor of a tenement, in a poor family’s back room. This scene reveals one of the most important themes of this novel which is totalitarianism; the unfair courts are one of the most powerful institutions of the totalitarian dictatorship. Moreover, The justice system is portrayed as a symbol of bureaucracy in which its members are bind to the process rather than result of the process. As long each in the hierarchy performs according to its own individual mandate, what happens above or below is unimportant. K. condemns the bureaucracy that directs the persecution of a typical citizen like himself in this quote:
There is no doubt,” he said quietly, “that there is some enormous organization determining what is said by this court. In my case this includes my arrest and the examination taking place here today, an organization that employs policemen who can be bribed, oafish supervisors and judges of whom nothing better can be said than that they are not as arrogant some others. This organization even maintains a high-level judiciary along with its train of countless servants, scribes, policemen and all the other assistance that it needs, perhaps even executioners and torturers -I’m not afraid of using those words. And what, gentlemen, is the purpose of this enormous organization? Its purpose is to arrest innocent people and wage pointless prosecutions against them which, as in my case, lead to no result. How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning. (kafka35)
Moreover, the protagonist experiences a vague feeling of contingency and looks for the judges to justify his existence. He finds himself lacking the strength to stand up and assume a solitude which frightens him. He wants to be integrated into a hierarchy, but these are vain hopes; the judges he meets are subordinate and corrupt. All of the aforementioned points are considered as features of the existentialist novel. Furthermore, the narration of that scene has the narrative quality of a nightmare lacking sequence. The absurdity which Kafka depicts in his nightmarish stories are, to him, the essence of the whole human condition. The sense of alienation from which the protagonist suffers is due to the utter incompatibility of the divine and human law and Kafka’s inability to solve the discrepancy. However hard Kafka’s heroes strive to come to terms with the universe, they are hopelessly caught in a network of accidents and incidents, the lead of which may lead to the most serious consequences.
K. returns to the court the next week, without being summoned. There, he finds no one but the washerwoman, who also happens to be the usher’s wife. She tells him that the court is not in session. She seduces him and lets him explore the court room, where he finds out that the examining magistrate’s notebooks are actually pornographic novels. A law student comes in and carries the washerwomen away, presumable to sleep with the judge. Then the usher comes by and takes K. on a tour of the court offices. K. meets the defendants in the shabby offices of the court, their physical condition reveals the wear and tear of undergoing a trail. K. Felt faint, all of a sudden, in the offices stuffy atmosphere, and has to be escorted out of that place, where he is immediately revived by the fresh air outside. The Trail is somehow a quest for what is inaccessible, containing a series of unreliable and ludicrous people. These people contradict themselves and each other, and offer dubious guidance to the protagonist of the novel. K. invests his hopes in elusive and random figures; they do not advance his cause at the slightest as the washerwoman. He is caught midways between a the notion of good and evil, where he cannot determine its extension or resolve its contradiction. In:
“[A]nd he turned to the nearest one, a tall, thin man with hair that was nearly grey. ‘What is it you are waiting for here?’ asked K., politely, but the man was startled at being spoken to unexpectedly, which was all the more pitiful to see because the man clearly had some experience of the world and elsewhere would certainly have been able to show his superiority and would not have easily given up the advantage he had acquired.”(kafka48)
K .encounters a taste of what will come for him. Just as the defendant seems easily confused, K. will also lose his powers of reasoning as the novel progresses. Furthermore, Kafka’s portrayal of the institution, which performs the legislative and the executive power, is far from being efficient and compact. There is chaos everywhere and nobody is able to merge and work co-dependently. Those workers are limited only to a tiny sphere of knowledge. They only know their isolated duty and nothing more so that they can be replaced easily any time by others. These are all representations of the impenetrable tangle of legal systems which are from the themes of the existentialist novel.
“For some time after this, K. found it impossible to exchange even just a few words with Miss Bürstner. He tried to reach her in many and various ways but she always found a way to avoid it”(Kafka55). K. tries to find Fraulein Burstner but fails, he even writes a letter to justify his former behavior, kissing her, but she does not answer. Then, he sees a different tenant moving into her room the following Sunday. The new occupant is Fraulein Montag. Moreover, a maid informs Josef that Fraulein Montag wants to speak to him, only to understand later that she is speaking on behalf of Fraulein Burstner. She tells him that Fraulein Burstner does not think that having a meeting with him would be beneficial. Josef thanks her and leave, and while leaving he meets Frau Grubach’s nepher, Captain Lanz. Lanz appears to be a graceful man and greets Fraulein Montag gracefully which contradicts with the treatment she received from Josef. Josef leaves the room and convinces himself that Fraulein Montag’s goal is to hinder his relation with Frauleim Burstner. So, he goes to see Frau Burstner alone despite her earlier message. He checks that nobody is watching and knocks on her door, but nobody answers. He decides to enter, even though he senses that he is doing an inappropriate thing. The room is empty, and as he leaves it, he notices that that the Captain and Fraulein Montag have seen his trespass. As K. loses control over his legal proceedings, he is also losing control over his personal life. He cannot even make himself acknowledged by Fraulein Burster. One of the only spontaneous actions that Josef has taken in the entire novel has led to alienating him from his acquaintances. That signify that while rules are what confine him, he cannot subvert them on his own, because they still confine the rest of society. Josef sees that Fraulein Montag and Captain Lanz are useless to him, so he thinks that they are not worth his time or to treat them with civility. He thinks that their own goal is only keeping him away from Fraulein Burstner. In other words, Josef’s interpretations are improperly affected by his fleeting anxieties and biases. Josef feels alienated, alone and controlled by his anxieties. Kafka’s protagonist are lonely because they are caught midway between the concept of good and evil, whose scope they cannot identify nor can they resolve its contradiction. Bereaved of any common reference and transfixed upon their own vision of the law, they cease to be heard or understood by the world around them. They are isolated to the extent where essential communication fails them. Kafka says that his protagonists are standing between two worlds a vanished one to which he once belonged and a current one whish he does not belong. In addition, because Josef cannot make himself understood or heard, he is always involved in adventures which no one else knows about. As there is mostly nobody else within the story to whom he an communicate his circumstances, so he tends to reflect on his own problems over and over again. This solipsistic quality is one of the features of existentialism and alienation is also one of the features. Also, For Kafka, bachelorhood was a symbol of alienation from communal happiness, and so Josef is alienated not only from his society but from the happiness that normal people share.
At work, Joseph opens the door of a rubbish closet to discover the two wardens who arrested him earlier being flogged:
“It was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old, unusable forms, empty stone ink-bottles lay scattered behind the entrance. But in the cupboard-like room itself stood three men, crouching under the low ceiling. A candle fixed on a shelf gave them light. ‘What are you doing here?’ asked K. quietly, but crossly and without thinking. One of the men was clearly in charge, and attracted attention by being dressed in a kind of dark leather costume which left his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He did not answer. But the other two called out, ‘Mr. K.! We’re to be beaten because you made a complaint about us to the examining judge.’ And now, K. finally realized that it was actually the two policemen.”(kafka62)
They say that they are being flogged because K. complained about them to the investigator. The novel continues to pose irrational, absurd situation as of a flogging taking place in a file closet. That seen shows that the court have access to every place, including K. personal life and judging everyone. It shows an essential characteristic of an impenetrable and unaccountable bureaucracy. Further, this incident seems to facilitate the inevitable mental breakdown, the signs of which many of the accused individuals show. Instead of only worrying about his case, mow K. is plagued by guilt for being the source of these poor men’s misery. The wardens blame him again for something out of his apprehension, as he had no way of knowing that his words at court would cause such a reaction. This scene presents both the political and psychological oppression themes. The cane-wielder tells K. that “[i]t’s my job to flog people, so I flog them”(kafka64). As everyone who has ever worked in a bureaucracy would say. The novel is a presentment of dehumanizing aspect of bureaucracies not only for those who must deal with them, but also for those who work with them. This scene shows that every individual, even the cane-wielder, is subject to the courts punishment and the fear aroused from that punishment drives conformity and compliance. This statement from the person charged with flogging is a representative of how the system is the real enemy for Josef and humanity, not any particular person. Detached from the levels of system above and below him, he only knows his employment is established upon doing the thing he is charged to do. Giving value to the life of every man he flogs, is not of that description. Josef begins to see that the problem is the larger system as in “if I had realized they would be punished, or even that they might be punished, I would never have named them in the first place as they are not the ones I hold responsible. It’s the organization that’s to blame, the high officials are the ones to blame” (kafka64). But his insight drives no action, he is still gripped within the system, unable to run away, just like everybody else. There is a hint in that scene indicating that everyone is sentenced to death, everyone struggles to avoid it, but no one can. Life is portrayed as a rigged system just like the court. Bereaved of all metaphysical guidelines, man is still obligated to act morally in a world where death transpose everything meaningless. The protagonist alone must determine what forms a moral action though he can never foresee the consequence of his actions. As a result, he comes to view his freedom of choice as a curse. The quilt of existentialist heroes lies in their failure to choose and act in the face of too many possibilities, none of which seems more legitimate or worthwhile than any other one. The sense of alienation that Josef feels is present throughout this scene. The aforementioned themes is a representation of the existentialist novel.
Later, K.’s uncle Karl visits him and reproaches him for not pursuing his case more properly. Karl seems to be just as controlled by social insecurities as K. is. His interference comes out of concern for his own reputation as much as concern about Josef’s well-being. Karl takes K. to visit an old acquaintance, a defense lawyer named Huld. When they arrive, Huld tells them that he already knows about Josef’s trail. Then, Huld introduces the court official who has been sitting in the room unnoticed. The court official speaks only with the older men, ignoring K. completely. As the uncle, Huld, and the court official discuss K.’s case, K. is distracted by Huld’s nurse Leni, who shows him into Huld’s office and seduces him. After that, K. meets up with his uncle outside Huld’s apartment, where the uncle scolds K. again for destroying every chance of success in his case. Huld indicates his former knowledge with Josef’s trail when he says” ‘[o]h, I see,’ said the lawyer with a smile. ‘I am a lawyer, I move in court circles, people talk about various different cases and the more interesting ones stay in your mind, especially when they concern the nephew of a friend”(Kafka77). It gives the impression of a legal sphere that knows everything, from which K. can hide nothing. The unobserved presence of the court official stresses this impression. The law seems to be regularly watching Josef without his knowledge, and conspiring with the people who are assumed to be helping and guiding defendants. The novel presents us with the theme of the impenetrable tangle of the legal system. Further, Leni’s interest in Josef is marked by a primary inexplicability, as here is no reason behind her interest considering the fact that she just met Josef. This also stresses the theme of the absurdity of the world where absurd inexplicable things happen. Then, the theme of guilt that results from the wrong choices that the protagonist has to make. As when Josef leaves the lawyer, his uncle, and the Court official and spends hours With Leni in another room. All of the aforementioned is a representation of the existentialist novel.
The following events discuss several themes of existentialism as the existentialist angst, the absurdity of the word, the corrupt totalitarian power, and alienation. Josef starts worrying about his trail and about the effectiveness of his lawyer. He starts to believe that the justice system that controls his life is a bureaucratic morass, in which documents are often kept secret or misplaced. He perceives the justice system as entirely human, random, and based on connections rather than guilt or innocence, this appears when in he says:
The only right thing to do is to learn how to deal with the situation as it is. Even if it were possible to improve any detail of it -which is anyway no more than superstitious nonsense – the best that they could achieve although doing themselves incalculable harm in the process, is that they will have attracted the special attention of the officials for any case that comes up in the future, and the officials are always ready to seek revenge. Never attract attention to yourself! Stay calm, however much it goes against your character! Try to gain some insight into the size of the court organism and how, to some extent, it remains in a state of suspension, and that even if you alter something in one place you’ll draw the ground out from under your feet and might fall, whereas if an enormous organism like the court is disrupted in any one place it finds it easy to provide a substitute for itself somewhere else. Everything is connected with everything else and will continue without any change or else, which is quite probable, even more closed, more attentive, more strict, more malevolent. (kafka88-89)
Although he cannot decides whether his actions matters or not, he cannot stop obsessing over the matter. His existential angst is heightened in that scene. Also, the corruption of the totalitarian power and the political oppression is evident. The court resembles an enlarged version of real judicial systems, where connections matter more than justice or facts. It is an absurd corrupt world, where nothing is as it should be. Josef realizes now that trail is no longer an isolated part of his life; everyone in his surroundings is aware of it, and that it has steadily begun affecting his life. He determinates in making his legal documents himself, but instead of doing anything, he resumes daydreaming. One of Josef’s clients tells him that he knows about his trail from a friend who works as a painter. That painter earns his living by painting portraits of court officials. That client offers to introduce him to the painter, hopping that this connection could help Josef in his case. Josef accepts that offer and pays the painter a visit. The case is beginning to consume him both mentally and physically and he starts to worry that his professional reputation is going to be destroyed because he cannot function any more. Josef meets the painter and after offering him to buy some of his paintings, he starts to explain his knowledge of the court. He tells Josef that to be acquitted, it has to be one of three ways “absolute acquittal, apparent acquittal and deferment”(Kakka112-113). He further adds, that the absolute acquittal is the best outcome for a defendant, but rarely, if ever, occurs. Then, he explains the apparent acquittal. It is a temporary one and can be reversed at any time by higher-ranking judges. The legal system seems to be methodized in such a way that prevents an accused man from ever breaking free of its control. As K. learns of this systemic oppression, the very air of the place starts to oppress him, further signifying that he cannot escape the system. The court is irredeemably corrupt and the thing that really matters is the good relations, yet the painter insists that even with good relations, the stakes are low. Justice, in this absurd, corrupt world cannot be hoped for. Furthermore, the painter speaks with Josef about a painting in his room and tells him:
[i]t’s actually the figure of justice and the goddess of victory all in one The painting is supposed to be a symbol of justice as a blind woman holding scales. But, the painting is also painted as having wings on her heels, that indicates motion and refers that movement can cause her scales to go off-balance. Thus, rendering an unfair verdict. Moreover, Josef starts isolating himself and as he gets deeper into his trail “did a carefully worked out defence not also mean he would need to shut himself off from everything else as much as he could? Would he survive that. (Kafka108)
He thinks that the court that controls every aspect of his life requires that he separate himself off from everything to pursue his own case. So, Josef starts moving in circles of the trail, being constricted in the tunnel of a strange and impersonal operations, and the more he tries to protect himself, the more troubles he makes for his own case. The novel tends to depicts the absurdity and the truth of life. The absurdity can be noticed on the levels of events connections, of a single character, of the overall tendency of reality in this novel.
Josef deprived of rest. At work he is distracted and gloomy. Once Josef is in charge to accompany some Italian visitor. Despite his position, he arrives at the central cathedral, where the meeting is appointed. The Italian did not arrive and Josef waits in the rain. And suddenly, someone called his name in a deep voice. It was the priest and he questioned Josef and said that his trial situation is bad. Josef obediently agrees. He is already aware of it himself. And now a year has passed and on the morning of Josef’s next birthday. About nine o’clock to his apartment came two germen in black they took Josef and quietly left the house, passed through the city and stopped at a small abandoned quarry. They took off his jacket and shirt and placed his head on a rock. One of them took out a sharp knife. K. felt that he should grab the knife and stab him himself, but he lacked the force. His last thoughts were about the judge, whom he had never seen, about the supreme court and about the possibility of the presence of some arguments that could have saved his life. But at this moment the hands of the first man grabbed his throat and the second one thrust the knife into his heart and turned twice. Furthermore, Kafka tried to challenge the inconsistencies and inefficiencies of the court. The symbolization can be seen throughout the story. When Josef was with Leni, she told him that he cannot resist the court, and that he had to confess. In addition, the priest told him that the court demands nothing from him and that it receives him when he comes and it renounces him when he go. Also, The painter told him that everything belongs to the court. They all assert one fact that however hard Josef tries, he just can never escape the courts control. And this is how Kafka presents the court. In the first trail, Josef followed the order of the court room. But on Sunday, he showed up in the courtroom without being summoned. The church scene, Josef heard someone’s screaming. He pondered about whether to go or not. He knew he was free at that time. He thought that by turning back, he was admitting that the screaming was actually meant for him, so he decided to obey and complied with the calling of the priest. Kafka expresses the struggle inside Josef; though he wanted to resist, he waited for them when he was plead under arrest without any resistance. Josef is depicted as lost between two worlds as he returns back to the court for the second time although he was not summoned as he has the feeling that his well-being is somehow involved. He rejects solitary life and seeks the human community, but it rejects him. He is neither a part of society nor consumed entirely by the world of the court and sits only at night and on Sundays in dehumanized areas. He lives on the border of two worlds, he is confused and finds no peace in his life. Josef is sentenced to die because he does not seek the law. Josef finds himself in a dead end, no matter what direction he takes and there is no way out for him rather than death. He follows the set paths superficially and lives truly on the fringes of society, without being understood, miserable over his absurd profession at the bank, while he feels a complicated world within him that causes him anguish. He is from the people who stands apart from the rest and experience guilt for this apartness. Moreover, his guilt is heightened when he wishes to acknowledge and announce his singularity, sine he has to assert it against the established order. To be aware of yourself, and to abandon the impersonal life, are the ethical thrust of the novel. The protagonist dies because he is neither protected from on high nor from behind, neither by God nor by existence. To have an awareness of the self, to be oneself and to give up the impersonal life which men lead, seems to be the ethical thrust of the novel. Joseph K. dies because he is protected neither from on high nor from behind, neither by God nor by an existence established on the deep foundations of the authentic being. His life is therefore no longer based on the absolute. Faith is dead; men have killed it. Man is nothing more than a mess. He is obligated to find his reason for being in himself, at the very core of his existence, which intellect has reduced to the condition of an abstract category. He must rediscover the meaning of life.
Conclusion
To conclude, The Trail by Franz Kafka is represented in this research as existentialist novel. Firstly, this research explains the meaning of the existentialism theory in details. Secondly it explains an important theme of existentialism which is the absurdity of the world. Then, it discusses the novel and explores the themes of existentialism. Throughout the research the features and themes of existentialism were investigated and discussed. Themes as existential alienation, alienated subjectivity, existential angst, the contingency of existence, isolation insecurity, the labyrinth of state bureaucracy, the corrupt or whimsical abuse of totalitarian power, the impenetrable tangle of legal systems, the absurdity of the world, the inhumanity of the modern world, the nightmare of inter subjectivity, the political oppression. Also, this paper discusses the existentialist character of the protagonist.
Citation
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