Franz Kafka’s The Trial was written in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously in 1925. Franz Kafka was born on June 3 1883 in Prague. Kafka trained as a lawyer and worked at an insurance company, writing in his spare time. He ended up burning the overwhelming majority of his works and wanted what remained to be burned as well; what remains of these works engage themes such as alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. Kafka is known today as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature and inspired a word to describe things reminiscent of his work: kafkaesque is defined as “suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings especially: having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality” (Merriam-Webster 2023). The Trial, among other works by Kafka, was given to Max Brod, a friend whom Kafka considered his literary executor, to burn as these works were unfinished. In The Trial, we follow Josef K as he is charged with an unknown crime in an unnamed city. Throughout the novel, we see how K. is alienated from the society around him and how the law is arbitrary to those under it. The Trial was listed on Le Monde’s “100 Books of the Century” only getting topped by Camus’ The Stranger and Marcel’s In Search of Lost Time. In addition to Le Monde, The Trial was ranked number two of the “Best German Novels of the Twentieth Century”. In turn, The Trial was read countless times by readers worldwide. Franz Kafka’s The Trial, makes readers question their beliefs of the absurd and pushes them to think about bureaucracy in their daily lives. More specifically, how they interact and traverse the arbitrarily of the bureaucracy within their daily lives.
Throughout The Trial, we follow Josef K. as he is convicted of an unknown crime by a bureaucratic system. We follow him as he struggles to defend himself in court and ends up further alienating himself from society as a whole while trying to understand the bureaucracy. At the beginning of The Trial, a thirty-year-old Josef K. is arrested by two warders for a crime that is unknown to both Josef and the warders. Josef is then called to meet the inspector and the inspector reiterates the same statements that the warders made, that Josef has been arrested and his crime is unknown. He is then called and told the location and time of his court case and he gets to the location to realize it is in a poor neighborhood and he will have to search for the exact location on his own. This is the beginning of the arbitrarily of the law as K. is told he is being charged yet no one knows what he is being charged for, not the warders and not even the inspector who is above the warders. It seems as he goes through the ranks of the bureaucracy it only becomes more arbitrary. K. ends up showing up to his court case late and is criticized by the Examining Magistrate, as this ordeal goes on we read about how they do not seem to know anything about K. except for the fact that he is late. On top of this every time K. responds to the Examining Magistrate the right side of the courtroom gives a positive response, that is until he condemns the bureaucracy and they all stay silent. After some commotion, K. realizes “the gleam of badges of various sizes and colours on their coat collars. They all had these badges, as far as could be seen. The groups on the right and the left, that had looked like two parties, all belonged together, and he saw, as he suddenly swung round, the same badges on the collar of the examining magistrate.” (Kafka 1925). The courtroom was set more as entertainment for the bureaucracy than as a real trial. Keep in mind K. still is not aware of what he is being charged with and was not given a defense council except for himself. To the bureaucracy messing with people’s lives in this way is a game, while to people like K., this is far more than entertainment.
One key to understanding what Kafka is describing here is broken down by Thomas M. Kavanagh’s “Kafka's The Trial: The Semiotics of the Absurd”. In this scholarly take, we explore the relationship between the code and the message and how it gives a framework for the tactics of the legal system in which Josef was under trial. More specifically, it gives a framework for the ways under which the trial and those involved, the bureaucracy, were alienating Josef from society, utilizing its arbitrarity. Kavanagh describes four parts of the code with the third part being defined as the code where the only functioning part of the code is arbitrary which is the final judgment of the trial. This code is what it takes to understand the trial once you understand the code you understand the trial and once you understand the trial you can defeat the bureaucracy. The true meaning of the code is revealed during the parable that the priest gives to K. as the priest gives various interpretations of the parable. The true meaning of the code is that there is no true meaning of the code or as Kavanagh puts it “the impossibility of interpretation.” (Kavanagh 1972, 252). The bureaucracy is so invested in this trial that the priest is the prison chaplain, the priest is a part of the bureaucracy.
This priest is involved in the storytelling of the parable entitled Before The Law in which a gatekeeper sits before the law and a man approaches them and attempts to gain entry. The man is told that “[i]t is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” (Kafka 1915). The gatekeeper warns the man that he is powerful and only the lowest rank of gatekeeper, the man feels defeated and decides to sit and wait for the law to be open to him whilst bribing the gatekeeper with everything he has as the years go on. Now on the doorstep of the death, the man claims that “[e]veryone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” (Kafka 1915). The man is then met with the response “this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” (Kafka 1915). The man spends his entire life waiting for the law to be open to him as the law is possible to be open to him just not at this time rather than going out and attempting to gain the law on his own, he is complacent because of the way he interpreted the gatekeeper’s words. He assumes since the law can open to him he just has to wait for the right time, which is not true at all as the gate is locked at the end of the parable. This is a parallel to the situation that K. is encountering with the bureaucracy as he faces government officials who are just as arbitrary as the gatekeeper.
Another key to understanding The Trial is found in a letter sent by Kafka to his father. This letter reveals that Kafka’s critique of bureaucracy sprouted from the resentment he fostered for his father as Kafka states “ I have always hidden from you, in my room, among my books, with crazy friends, or with extravagant ideas…” (Kafka 1966). Kafka’s father seemed to be very tough on him and Kafka describes himself as timid and obstinate. Kafka even goes as far as to say “if anyone had tried to calculate in advance how I, the slowly developing child, and you, the full-grown man, would stand to each other, he could have assumed that you would simply trample me underfoot so that nothing was left of me.” (Kafka 1966). Just as the bureaucracy tries to trample K. throughout The Trial. It seems that some of the things experienced by K. are based on Kafka’s childhood growing up with a bureaucratic father. We now understand where Kafka gets this critique of bureaucracy from and how deeply rooted they are to him, this gives us an understanding as to how he was able to craft The Trial.
When I think of bureaucracy in the modern day the first thing that comes to mind is being in the Department of Motor Vehicles, the DMV is truly a kafkaesque place. The Stanford Daily goes as far as to call the DMV the “Department of Bureaucracy” as the “DMV (Department of Motor Vehicle) lines have always been outrageously long, reflecting a notoriously inefficient agency.” (The Stanford Daily 2018). This is just like the bureaucracy within The Trial as they are incompetent in doing their jobs as they stretch trials out for years and fail to provide those under the trial basic rights. The DMV will make you schedule an appointment just for you to stand in line to enter, and then you take a number and wait to be called to the front. Once you get called to the front they send you somewhere else to fill out paperwork and you cannot return until those people give you the green light. Once given the green light you can return to the first area to fill out more paperwork before being called back to the front again. Why is it that I had to stand in line and take a number despite having an appointment, why did I get sent back and forth? Why did I have to fill out two separate forms at two different times, would it not be easier for me to fill out all the forms at once? This is where you see the arbitrarily of the DMV as they see you on their own time despite your appointment and send you back and forth between areas with insurmountable amounts of paperwork to fill out. The DMV is just one modern equivalent of The Trial faced by K.. I am sure there are tons of other Kafkaesque examples I could have drawn from but this is the one that strikes close to home and this experience is likely shared by others who have to interact with the DMV.
In the end, we all struggle to live under a bureaucracy that riddles our lives with unended levels of arbitrary rules and laws. But we must overcome this and not end up like the man in Before the Law. Unlike K. and Kafka we must not have “the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.” (Kafka 2009, 129). We must overcome our trials against the bureaucracy. Franz Kafka’s The Trial, makes readers question their beliefs of the absurd and pushes them to think about bureaucracy in their daily lives. More specifically, how they interact and traverse the arbitrarily of the bureaucracy within their daily lives.