I find this weeks reading so interesting because even though Kafka is famous for his peculiar writing style, I honestly believed that as the story progressed, things would start making more sense or there would be at least a pattern to the occurrences. K, in a good number of ways, reminds me of John Proctor from Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” mainly through his almost blind courage. He lacking really any solid knowledge about the court and even how it is really organized or run but still he makes decisions and stands behind them strongly. When going to dismiss his lawyer, I found a parallel to when John Proctor is given the chance to falsely admit to his accused crimes. Through their own pride in what they believe to be right, almost always going against what the rest of society does, the men dismiss any help or shortcuts, fighting to figure it out on their own.
The torture within this story is also very strange, as well as the forms of interrogation. Rather than any real form of physical torture, the torture occurs purely psychologically. The lack of information and mental stressor of just knowing that he has been “arrested” and is on trial causes K much mental stress. He is distracted at his job and becomes outright paranoid, and rightly so. Each encounter that seems natural somehow ends up being linked to the court.
I agree that it is odd most of the torture is purely psychological but I see the link between a reading for this class where it documented the psychological effects of a death sentence is visceral enough to produce physiological effects. As such, I'm sure the psychological effects of mere incarceration is enough to produce physiological effects for K that manifests in his behavior. I'd expect for there to be pattern evident later on too but I speculate that the lack of a pattern or the abruptness of K's death alludes to a theme that perhaps the law is sometimes at best arbitrary and enforced by men whose intangible grasp of it is tenuous at best.Overall I definitely agree that a lot of parallels and similarities can be made to Arthur Miller's The Crucible, especially that of an incoherent justice system.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post that it is mostly psychological torturing. I like the fact that K started to say "You" to the escorts who were going to kill him. It was a sort of twist like if the escorts were being interrogated and intimidated. The book greatly portrays that sometimes the authorities push their power that they affect innocent people.
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