Caught in a Mouse Trap: K's Struggles in Kafka's The Trial Essay

It engenders21 a sense of hope within viewers, since unscrupulous22 people become aware that what they have done is not acceptable. However, the courtroom scene in The Stranger further emphasizes that truth is simply an illusion, for truth is relative and what might be truth to one person can be false to another. For example, in society, it is truth that a “morally good person” is one that is benevolent23 and genial24. Meursault was anything but benevolent and genial, and it is possible to consider him as a good person, depending on one’s perspective. The prosecutor was trying to make Meursault seem like a criminal, since he did not adhere to society’s standards or fit society’s description of a “good” person. When the warden of the Home in which Meursault’s mother resided in was up for questioning during Meursault’s trial, he had been “surprised by Meursault’s ‘calmness’” and further explained that Meursault “hadn’t wanted to see Mother’s body, or shed a single tear” (Camus 55). This reaction to his own mother’s death is quite unusual and is drastically different from the reaction society expects. Through this, the Prosecutor was trying to show that there must be something wrong with Meursault, so it must be true that he premeditated the shooting of the Arab. In Meursault’s perspective and mine, his indifference did not provide evidence or truth of his crime, but again, “truth” can be

In the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, there are significant actions and transformations which make the story sad, and strange with a happy ending. Explanations that are dramatic events that intensify the excitement of all these actions. Reality and reflection play an important role in this story because the events that happened could be applied and assimilated with modern society.

It argues that the police are not simply incompetent, but even apathetic to the problems of the community they have sworn to protect and serve. This is evidenced in that, while investigating the murder of a young girl, the police go door to door a single time canvassing for witnesses. When everyone claims that they didn’t see anything, the police move on. The play suggests that this, along with picking up the usual black suspects for questioning, is about the extent of their investigation. The police don’t appear to spend much time gathering evidence from the scene. They don’t come back to see if anyone has remembered anything since the shock wore off. In fact, they seem to be trying to avoid the scene of the crime. Zooman himself calls the police officers out on their lack of dedication to finding a murderer in this rough neighborhood, claiming, “[I]f a black kills a black, and they don’t catch you right away, they [sic] liable to forget about it” (Fuller 47). This indicates that his past experiences with law enforcement haven’t led him to believe in their capabilities, so much so that he has completely given up on the

This article by Walter H. Sokel claims that the metamorphosis Gregor goes through gives him the chance to be rebellious. Sokel highlights that after Gregor is changed into a cockroach he also changes mentally, which affects his actions.

In chapters five “Chasing My Stolen Bicycle” and seven “Duke Lacrosse Players Relieved Case has ‘Closure’”, they share a similar theme. They both involve risk, harm, and seriousness. They both involve the role of a prosecutor, as well as deal with some type of crime.

He tries again to support his argument without losing his readers among the details. All he wants here is to show to his reader the prison's congestion and its consequence towards the justice system.

Instead of looking at Jay as a suspect the police didn’t want to use Jay to be a suspect because he was building a strong case against Adnan. Adnan’s Attorney tried to make Jay a suspect but it didn’t work because he looked like a credible witness. Jay's testimony was the only thing the cops had. They were so glad to have a good witness that the prosecutor Mr. Urick provided Jay with a

“This is how every case starts,” he muttered, “a single bloody knock that interrupts my tea-time.” Guvna was sitting in his office, a tiny box of a room, with his brand-new gaming laptop in front of him. He ended his game of Mad Parrots and quickly shoved the laptop under his desk. “Come on in!” he said gruffly. A man entered who looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He was wearing a Clein Klavin jacket with the hood pulled up so the detective couldn’t see his face.

Today’s society is run by and thrives off capitalism, ruled by our government. Many things are kept surreptitious from us. The government feeds us lies to silence us and to force us conform to society’s customs, this is evident in the novel ‘The Trial.’ It depicts the way in which society is ruled by an autocratic hierarchy, which is kept secret from the working class. This is a metaphor for the Marxist ideology of the bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat in a capitalist society. ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka was published in 1945 and follows the injustice of the main character Josef, who is arrested by two wardens, and prosecuted on unnamed charges. "Without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning." The nature of his crime is kept confined from him and the reader. Throughout the novel, Josef struggles ineffectively against an oppressive and autocratic court system, only to be abruptly executed, at the end of the novel. This essay will be exploring Josef’s character and the ways in which ‘The Trial’ is written in a Marxist perspective in depth, analysing how Josef struggles against the oppressive court system, adamant not to compromise his beliefs to conform to and suit society’s norms.

In The Trial, the way in which K. constantly questions himself and other characters particularly creates a language of omission. Franz and Willem’s arrival at the beginning of the novel catalyzes the novel’s questioning nature, as they force K. to ask, “‘Who are you?’” (Kafka 4). K.’s initial question then

In The Trial by Franz Kafka, the protagonist K. is going through what is often thought of as one of the most dehumanizing aspects of society. Even in the United States many criticize the justice system for being dehumanizing. People are forced to wear the same thing, act the same way, and are given numbers instead of names. In The Trial Kafka emphasizes the dehumanizing aspects of this process by exacerbating the bureaucratic steps that must be accomplished and adds more uncertainty and secrecy to the steps. Kafka’s writing shows the lack of information that K. is given, and the symbolic dehumanization that occurs during the whipping and with K. lacking a last name.

The opening establishes and embodies the world of the justice system, “the man’s world”, accompanied by its seriousness, organisation and harshness in its outlook on reality, the depiction of a typical arrest, identification and trial of a convicted criminal. However, this “world”, according to Wood is threatened, stating that it is somewhat disrupted by the protagonist’s “frivolousness, selfishness, and triviality” (272).

Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a

Reading The Trial can be a confusing and frustrating task but that is because it is supposed to be. Stories usually start out with an introduction and it slowly introduces you to characters, setting, and then the conflict. This was what was expected in the very beginning of opening Kafka because of the unawareness of how unconventional and thought provoking this author proved to be. This is an author that takes what you know from the world and twists it into dark dreams that emphasize truths behind our reality. He brings out what it is that we are too afraid to confront or to question. He brings into existence the thoughts that bring fear and anxiety into many lives. From the very beginning, we are thrown into a world of confusion with no explanations and we are left to question everything. Strange people including police declare K.’s arrest while he is in bed. However, they cannot tell K. what he is being arrested for. They cannot tell him who asked for his arrest or who ordered and processed it. All they can say is that he is under investigation. Of course, K. like anybody, thought it was a prank and laughed it off in the beginning, but soon after realized how serious his case was. While trying to get answers to all his questions, he was buried under more absurdities and complex meaningless dead ends. He could not find a logical way out and the search for answers consumed his life. In the end, we are even more baffled when K. gets killed for choosing to step away from the

In Franz Kafka the Trail, Josef K. is brought up on unknown charges and struggles throughout the book to prove his innocents. K. evolves throughout his trial from a confident, well-spoken to a paranoid and on edge individual. Kafka wanted reader to get a view of a corrupt version of a justice system and a surveillance state. Which many of the concepts that Kafka wrote can be consider foreshadows of modern day society. The court holds a sense of power, where it keeps reminding K. that there is some sort of hidden guilt inside him. “Seeking the details could result in a fate like that of Josef K, who, in his desire to confront the anonymous powers, ultimately saps his vitality.” (Stach, 2014) K. tries to spends the whole trial figure out who holds the power, where knowing could ruin his innocents completely. Does this power hold some sort of control over K. throughout his trial, and is it somehow slowing convincing him of his own guilt? “He realized at once that he shouldn’t have spoken aloud, and that by doing so he had, in a sense, acknowledged the stranger’s right to oversee his actions.” (Kafka, 1925) K.’s trial depicts many issues pertaining to psychology of under surveillance and cognitive dissonance, to the point where reader question why K. would kill himself if he knew he was innocent. Does the society and justice system that K. is under compromise the psychological state of one’s psyche?