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Table of Contents | Printable Version In the scene with the wipper K. feels united with the warders because they broke some legal rule and denigrated their own legal status. He considers the seniors guilty and not they as being quilty on a spiritual and legal plane K. is the cause of the others sufferings because he complained about his liver. His attitude does not commensurate or the man's dignity. His character in modern living has caused unbearable suffering to others. It is jarring as this suffering takes place in the calm clear atmosphere of the office. K. again falls spiritually when he tries to bribe the whipper to prevent the suffering. It is symbolic of new movements in the world in his attempt to improve things. But it is ineffective. K.'s sorrow is reflected in the warder's shrieks. Allegorically the rotten system of the law is reflected. The suffering seems to be perpetual. So he denies it as he cannot end it, and title the bank servant that it is a dog yelling. He wants to take on the suffering of the world on himself but he runs away blaming the officials as being guilty. He still lacks courage but maintains that he is not guilty before the court. K. is just a spectator to the existential presence of the ego as manifest in humanity in the minds of the advocates. K. is neither superior nor inferior to any of them, but just an observer, though at the house of the advocate he thinks he can triumph spiritually. His encounter with the priest in the cathedral is the climax. The priest asks him to assess his own role and character amidst all the chaos and corruption raging around him. The priest sees him on the think of a great abyss from where no actin is possible in the course of the trial. The fact that K. tries to justify and free himself is an acceptance of guilt. His guilt cannot be defined in human language. K. has prejudged himself as innocent. He is deluded and refuses to listen to the court or the divine word. He is interested in the unimportant as against the essential. Symbolically as the priest, a messenger of god delivers his sermon, K. has an album instead of a prayer look in his hand. He does not hear the prophecy nor the supernatural summons. Symbolically the lamp that the priest gives him to carry into the world outside goes out.
The courts call was that of a divine call. His trial shows that he was imprisoned, not able to bring out his own "self" or his spiritual identity. The freedom that he longs for is the deliverance of his self. He is fed up of his routine existence. Like so many of Kafka's portrayals K. ends up, negating life without any hope. Table of Contents | Printable Version |