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MonkeyNotes-The Trial by Franz Kafka
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Kafka delineates the bureaucracy in the role of the doorkeeper and the old accused man who gets caught in the system. Though the officials want to break away from the system they are unable to do so. The Chaplain offers this parable and says that the private man is in comparison a free man. There is a message in the story like all parables. If man inquires into the determination of his own existence instead of staring at the superhuman world of courts he could be liberated on earth itself. If the private person, the accused had only asked for whom the entrance was intended before dying he would have received "the redeeming message". This is the intellectual and spiritual framework of "The Trial".

The book also throws light on K.'s subconscious ideas and instructs and desires. His official career, his affairs with woman and his problem of guilt. The lawyer in the story represents the entire spirit of the human spirit. Here consciousness is rendered powerless. Faith has to substitute knowledge and one has to submit knowledge and one has to submit to fate, but not rebel or become angry. This is what K. refuses to do. He does not follow his instincts. The lawyer's illness is symbolic of others' sufferings. Dog-like submission (like BlocksÂ’) is the only answer to religious hope. Kafka presents a frightening world where conscious life is going out of control.

Leni and Huld are inseparable. They cannot be questioned on political social or ideological grounds. They promise to be responsible for K.'s future. Huld does not confirm to any religion. He writes in a language that client's do not understand. K. is caught between freedom and concrete existence where there is no resolution.


The painter Titorelli represents all that is colorful and that exists on earth. But Titorelli remains unemotional and uninvolved, surrounded by women, while K. gets caught up, trying to free himself. By the time K. is meeting with the painter ends he is more detached. There is a transformation-taking place. K. changes clothes symbolically he is reborn.. The novel ends on K.'s realization that he has to meekly submit to the execution. He develops a growing strength in the act of dying

Dostoevsky it delineates the soul in the form of philosophic fiction. It has allegories, satire, parables and commentary. There are references to nature as the background. Robing and disrobing, when K. is arrested and after he meets Titorelli and again when the executors fetch him are very significant. His material and spiritual existence are implied in the change of clothes. The dog is a recurring metaphor where it symbolizes submission to faith at the spiritual level. The exquisite description of the chapel is another mark of Kafka's style. Change of rooms and of furniture mark important phases in K.'s life. He is arrested in Fräulein Bürstner's room. The rooms return to their original state after the whipper and the wardens disappear. This is also allegory emphasizing K.'s guilt.

K. also symbolizes the reader's response. The voyeuristic reader is like the neighbors in the framed windows like an impressionist painting looking at K.'s room. Illusion is also used as an effective technique. K. prejudges the court and its officials. The whipping scene could also be an illusion. To return to the framed window, the framing metaphor leads to the "framing" of K. as the accused, who is in fact the author. K. walked the busy streets in his office through with the manufacturer, seeing life pass by. He sits by the chair near the window when he is arrested.

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MonkeyNotes-The Trial by Franz Kafka

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