In the novel “The Trial” written by Franz Kafka, a character named Josef K. was suddenly arrested the morning of his 30th birthday. K. was given no explanation of his arrest. He was allowed to resume his daily life but is told to attend court hearings every Sunday. Josef spends a year under trial. Throughout his trial, Josef K. seeks guidance from his lawyer and everyone that has some knowledge of his trial but is only given advice in which K. thought to be useless. Not being able to understand the kind of legal system he was dealing with, k. never understood what he was guilty of. He then dies on his 31st birthday. This novel illustrates the senses of religion as it becomes one of the forces that influence the outcome of Josef K.’s existence. Josef K. interprets the legal system as just a legal system that is unfairly accusing him and not as a religious system that is accusing him of his sin of a human being.
Religious belief is one of the forces that influence the outcome of our existence. In this novel, the legal system is, in a sense, metaphorically a religious belief in which is responsible for judging a person’s life as a whole. Josef’s life is being judged by god. The mind of god is correct, it may not make sense to us but we must have faith. Josef K.’s inability to understand the legal system’s judgment through religious means makes it hard for him to comprehend what he was being accused of. The legal system didn’t seek Josef k. to make him admit being guilty for unlawful actions but to make him confront his own humanity, to admit his basic guilt as a human being whereas in religious means “The Original Sin”. K. doesn’t accept his basic guilt as a human being because he doesn’t see the system as a force of religious means...
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... see Huld. K. tells Huld that he was being dismissed because he sees no progression in his case. Huld replies “…From a certain point onward in one’s practice… nothing really new ever happens” (pg187) K. didn’t put much thought into what Huld said. If K. took the time to study what Huld said, he could have looked at his case from a different point of view such as a religious context. Huld then summons block in to show K. how others were being treated in hopes that he’ll draw a lesson from it. Huld doesn’t tell Block any information about how his trial was going yet block treats him with the upmost respect and dog-like behavior in such praise worthy sense. This shows the lawyer that block has faith in him. Block’s actions towards Huld shows hope in a religious way. He has no clue on what is going on in his case but has hope that Huld will give him some sort of answer.
Morley Callaghan’s novel More Joy in Heaven follows the short life of notorious bank robber and gunman Kip Caley. Callaghan's novel is based off and follows Red Ryan's now forgotten story almost word for word. Red Ryan and the fictional Kip Caley both face the effects of a being an outsider in a forceful, high-class society. Individuals and organizations play a huge responsibility role to ex-convicts; readers of More Joy in Heaven unfortunately see the side effects when selfishness and thirst for glory play into this important, delicate role. Nonetheless that readers see what the wrong individuals will do to an ex-convict, readers will also see what kinder individuals can do to someone trying to reform. Yet what the public does and does not do is not to be blamed systematically; Red Ryan and Kip Caley crave societies attention and even begin to depend on it before their story is over. Their craving for attention makes them vulnerable to being abused by society. Both society and parolees want to live the upstanding lives, but neither takes into account what the others wants and needs are, so who’s fault is it when a parolee fails to meet societies precast expectations?
In Harry Mulisch’s novel The Assault, the author not only informs society of the variance in perception of good and evil, but also provides evidence on how important it is for an innocent person experiencing guilt to come to terms with their personal past. First, Mulisch uses the characters Takes, Coster, and Ploeg to express the differences in perspective on the night of the assault. Then he uses Anton to express how one cannot hide from the past because of their guilt. Both of these lessons are important to Mulisch and worth sharing with his readers.
Sokel, Walter H. "Franz Kafka." European Writers. Ed. George Stade. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. 847-75. Print. European Writers. Ward, Bruce K. "Giving Voice to Isaac: The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka's Trial." Shofar 22.2 (2004): 64+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. .
Within the tortured mind of a young Russian university student, an epic battle rages between two opposite ideologies - the conservative Christianity characteristic of the time, and a new modernist humanism gaining prevalence in academia. Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment uses this conflict to illustrate why the coldly rational thought that is the ideal of humanism represses our essential emotions and robs us of all that is human. He uses the changes in Raskolnikov's mental state to provide a human example of modernism's effect on man, placing emphasis upon the student's quest for forgiveness and the effect of repressed emotion.
... the Criminal Justice system. The author offers the reader a front row seat to the unfairness and unreliability of the CJ system. Grisham is not a fair writer himself and is biased in his writing throughout the entire novel. It is evident to the reader by the end of the novel that the prosecution in the case went to every extreme possible to put Fritz and Williamson in prison for a crime they did not commit. From the reader’s perspective, we knew from the beginning that Fritz and Williamson, no matter how much negative behavior they engaged in, were not the criminals and that there was a high likelihood of Gore being the offender. Nevertheless, Grisham takes us on a wild, nail-biting edge-of-your-seat ride through the Criminal Justice system in this book that leads us through an unfair trial and a slew of biased opinions, lies and deceptions and unjust procedures.
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 hunger for fame, reputation, and honor. This hunger seems to create in the mind of the Artist, a powerfully controlling dream schema. These dreams drive the Artist to unavoidable failure and alienation, which ultimately uncovers the sad truth about the artist. The truth is that the Artist was never an artist; he was a fraudulent outcast who fought to the last moment for fame, which ultimately became a thing of the past.
Human nature is a conglomerate perception which is the dominant liable expressed in the short story of “A Tell-Tale Heart”. Directly related, Edgar Allan Poe displays the ramifications of guilt and how it can consume oneself, as well as disclosing the nature of human defense mechanisms, all the while continuing on with displaying the labyrinth of passion and fears of humans which make a blind appearance throughout the story. A guilty conscience of one’s self is a pertinent facet of human nature that Edgar Allan Poe continually stresses throughout the story. The emotion that causes a person to choose right from wrong, good over bad is guilt, which consequently is one of the most ethically moral and methodically powerful emotion known to human nature. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe displays the narrator to be rather complacent and pompous, however, the narrator establishes what one could define as apprehension and remorse after committing murder of an innocent man. It is to believe that the narrator will never confess but as his heightened senses blur the lines between real and ...
Franz Kafka's The Judgement depicts the struggle of father-son relationships. This modernistic story explores Georg Bendemann's many torments, which result from the bonds with both his father and himself. Furthermore, the ever-present and lifelong battle that Georg has been fighting with his father leads him to fight an even greater battle with himself. Ultimately, Georg loses the struggle with himself by letting go of his newly found independence and instead, letting external forces decide his fatal outcome.
In the study conducted by Miller and Bornstein in 2006 regarding the use of religion and religious appeals in a death penalty case the researchers set out to find if these “religious appeals influenced the way of thinking. It is said that defense attorneys are hired to defend their client and give an argument that will be most beneficial for the client. There are various cases that have occurred dealing with the religious appeal argument that attorneys have used to persuade jurors i...
Reification seems to serve a pervasive role in Kafka's The Trial. Reification is when something abstract is given material worth by a society It seems that Kafka is questioning how the legal system has been given so much authority and power making it a material entity. In 1912, when Kafka penned The Trial, the rise of the republic was evident around Europe. There was a renewed emphasis on realism and rationale, which also makes an appearance in The Trial. When published, Kafka's novels "evoked the hopelessness of individuals confronting a relentless, machinelike society in which they are minor cogs". As the threat of war swirled in Europe (World War I was just on the horizon), anti Semitism and nationalism surrounded Kafka. In the arts, the rise of modernity created a challenge to positivism that could not be silenced.
The Trial is also meant to symbolize original sin and guilt. On the level of the individual versus the bureaucracy, Josef K. is consumed by guilt and condemned for a crime he does not understand by a court with which he cannot communicate. We see this same dilemma on the level of the individual versus an existential existence, i.e., man in the modern world trying to find meaning and justice, consumed by guilt and condemned for original sin by a god with which he ca...
One of Franz Kafka's most well-known and most often criticized works is the short story, "Die Verwandlung," or "The Metamorphosis." "The Metamorphosis" is most unusual in that the first sentence is the climax; the rest of the story is mainly falling action (Greenburg 273). The reader learns that Gregor Samsa, the story's main character, has been turned into an enormous insect. Despite this fact, Gregor continues to act and think like any normal human would, which makes the beginning of the story both tragic and comical at the same time. However, one cannot help but wonder why Gregor has undergone this hideous transformation, and what purpose it could possibly serve in the story. Upon examination, it seems that Gregor's metamorphosis represents both his freedom from maintaining his entire financial stability and his family's freedom from their dependence upon Gregor.
The central theme of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky deals with conformity’s role in society. Dostoyevsky uses conformity to make Raskolnikov mentally ill and eventually turn himself in to face the punishment for his crimes. Religion influences every character in the book, but none more ardently than Raskolnikov. Understanding religion’s role as a force for conformity in Crime and Punishment provides a powerful insight into character motives and, furthermore, philosophical influences.
Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is often referred to as a parable. Thus, it is logical to approach Kafka’s work as an allegory and search for the deeper meaning underneath the story. We can then try to uncover the identity of the characters; of the gatekeeper, the man from the country, and the Law and subsequently relating them to something that fits the example of the plot; a man’s confused search for god, a man’s quest for happiness but never accomplishing it, a academic’s quest for recognition which never comes. Any given number of innovative readers...
In Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Josef K. is guilty; his crime is that he does not accept his own humanity. This crime is not obvious throughout the novel, but rather becomes gradually and implicitly apparent to the reader. Again and again, despite his own doubts and various shortcomings, K. denies his guilt, which is, in essence, to deny his very humanity. It is for this crime that the Law seeks him, for if he would only accept the guilt inherent in being human (and, by so doing, his humanity itself), both he and the Law could move on. Ironically, this is in part both an existential and Christian interpretation of The Trial.