I have been trying to connect K's trial to the
story of the old man waiting at the door, and I think the “moral” or
connection to K’s trial and the man waiting at the door is that both were never
admitted to the law because of their own actions. Both K and the man operate within the directions of
those guarding the law. K follows the protocol of the courts and the old man
listens to the guard. Both complain about their situation and try to make waves
within the constraints they are given but they still don’t go against the
constraints put on them by the court or the guard. They both were threatened to
not go outside of the system they were in, and though we can’t know for sure
how K’s situation would have turned out, the man is clearly told that the door
was meant for him and that it would have been possible for him to pass through
it. The parallel that can be drawn is that if K had tried to operate outside of
the rules of the court he could have found the Law. Although K made waves in
the courts through his speeches and poking around, he still conformed to their
rules, which this story seems to imply was the wrong decision.
I think another connection to be drawn here is the fact that K., similar to the man in the parable, is the only one who can find the truth in his trial. Just as the law is hidden behind the door, it is unclear whether any character in the story even knows why K. is being arrested. I see every member of the court as representative of the doorkeeper, for not even they know what they are guarding. This is what makes the pretenses of K.'s trial even more enigmatic and perplexing.
ReplyDeleteVery keen analysis. I still think that K.'s obstinate and determined character is part of his own eventual fate, in that someone of a more laissez-faire attitude (like Block) would be more likely to spend the rest of his days in a judicial entaglement, being constantly detained as opposed to being actively sought out and lynched. I think Kafka meant this to be so, as you mean when you say that K. might have found the law if he'd only cooperated.
ReplyDeleteI still wonder if the parable 'Before the Law' might also stand for religious doctrine as well as judicial. We have argued in class that a Kafkaesque universe is also a godless one, and that perhaps the chaplain was just another official of the court, but he is still a chaplain in the house of God - there under the pretense of faith. It is just interesting to contemplate the idea that every man has his own entrance and his own will to the place beyond death (if there is one), and wonder if perhaps a wrongly convicted man such as K. is still by habit guilty enough to lock himself out of his own gate to Heaven.