The first
few chapters of “The Trial” by Franz Kafka chronicle the mysterious arrest of
Josef K., a man simply referred to as “K.”. When he is disturbed one morning by
several representatives of the court who arrest him, he is confused as to why
they are there, but they are unable to give him an explanation, as they are
merely following orders. It is a peculiar arrest, since he is still permitted
to go about his life normally, but he is particularly perturbed by the lack of
organization that comes along with the arrest. This is ironic, because if the
arrest were to be more formal, he would likely not be granted so many
liberties.
One passage
that particularly struck me was when an interrogator asked K. if he was very
surprised about his arrest, to which he replied he is not surprised, because he
is accustomed to strange, unexpected things happening in life. I thought this
was an interesting commentary, because it caught the interrogator off-guard,
and explained why K. reacted relatively calmly to his arrest. He is not a
submissive prisoner, and I am intrigued to find out how this unorthodox legal procedure
pans out.
Ted-
ReplyDeleteI think your post is very interesting when regarding the first chapter of "The Trial." I found that in this first chapter, as we have seen in our other readings throughout the semester, that the name seems to hold an importance, if not symbolic, meaning to the story. The main character being referred to as Josef K by Kofka and then by others as just simply "K" stood out to me immediately.
I also found the audience, that is noted when K is going through the interrogation process, particularly notable. Kafka describes it multiple times through the first interrogation scene, depicting a woman in the window looking in and watching the happenings of the apartment. Then later it is noted that the couple (the old woman and man) had been joined by another individual, the crowd growing. I'm not sure if this will have a significance in the story later on but it seems to relate to the other trial and torture literature we have read thus far both in the public trial/ torture and the importance of who is present and watching.
I agree that K's response to whether or not his arrest was surprising, was surprising in itself. He seems very disheveled by the incident and seems like he should be taking it more seriously but answers with a response that, as you point out, shocks the authorities. I think you have done a great job analyzing the reading thus far.
I agree that it is very strange for K to behave so calmly in such situation. Waking up some random day and found out that you are being arrested is, in my opinion, out of most strange and enexpected things that will happen in life. By the matter of fact, how can someone actually be accustom to strange and unexpected things? Is it still count as strange and unexpected things when someone is familiar with it? Indeed there is a lot of unorthodox events in the story and people seems to be accustom to it. The majority of people seems to be accustom to some strangeness; however, K seems not to be. In fact, what the others treated as strange seems normal to K while what K treated as strange seems to be normal to others.
ReplyDeleteI thought K's calm demeanor was quite odd as well. K's statement of being accustomed to strange happenings is an interesting contradiction--like Jeng Wei said above, if the strange is usual, then is it still strange? This statement gets even more interesting as K still seems to be caught off guard by other events that happen as he finds out more, or I suppose has more questions, about his arrest and trial. For some reason, Kafka makes the reader follow along from K's perspective without allowing the reader to really relate to him. Certainly none of us seem to relate to how calm he is. My theory is that Kafka leaves us without any character to relate to to make us even more uneasy with this Kafka-esque world.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very good point at how K seems to not be caught off guard by such a strange occurrence. I particularly like how you state that K is "not a submissive prisoner". This whole story is about K not having any power in most situations, and him trying to have control over his life. This is like his first attempt where others are controlling him and he is trying to have some semblance of power for himself. This is a recurring theme throughout the book, until the very end.
ReplyDelete