Franz Kafka's Thetrial: A Victim Of Bourgeois Society

Joseph K. in TheTrial: A Victim of Bourgeois Society
Abstract: Franz Kafka’s TheTrial is a story of a man namely Joseph K., who is persecuted by unknown forces, even though he is innocent, arrested and executed; without ever his crime being revealed to him. Kafka creates a world for K. that is unlike anything else. He is instructed to appear at several court hearings, which are held in the most unofficial of places, an apartment. It seems that everyone knows about K. and his accused crimes but himself. In The Trial, the entire Austro-Hungarian court system is parodied through the eyes of Joseph K. Kafka places Joseph K. in a world where law is obsolete and disorder thrives.TheTrial portrays the helplessness of Joseph K. in the face of unknown

Some of them have a strong conformist bent. An obvious example are those readings of the novel that suppose Joseph K’s guilt and therefore the legitimacy of his condemnation. For instance, Enrich Heller- whose writings on Kafka are far from being uninteresting- after a detailed discussion of the Parable “Before the law” concludes: “there is one certainly that left untouched by the parable as well as by the whole book: the law exists, and Joseph K. must have most terribly offended it, for he is executed in the end with a double edged-yes, double edged- butcher’s knife that is thrusts into his hearts and turned there twice”(Heller 79-80). Applied to the events of the 20th century, this argument would lead to the following conclusion: if this or that person, or even a few million persons, are executed by the authorities, it is certainly because they must have most terribly offended the law. In fact, nothing in the novel does not suggest that the poor Joseph K. did terribly offended the law and even less that he deserves a death