Kafka’s The Trial delves into the life of Josef K., a bank worker who gets himself tied up in an unknown trial, against an indefinable and ultimately unaccountable legal system. While the piece is a work of fiction it parallels many of the legal problems in existence during the period in which Kafka was writing and to an extent gives a fictitious account of many real events going on. Many parallels can be seen in the trials of Alfred Dreyfus, Oscar Wilde, John Scopes and Nikolai Bukharin in various ways. The book indirectly questions legal principals such as an accessible system and a clear understanding of the process. Fundamentally these principles are missing from the other real trials in question, and represent in most cases a serious miscarriage of justice.
One of the first trials encountered in this class was that of Alfred Dreyfus, a Captain in the French military who was accused of treason for passing French intelligence to the Germans. However where many parallels can be found lies in the subsequent actions taken by the French military and legal system. Dreyfus was convicted on treason and sentenced to be transported to Guiana and serve in a penal colony. As a result he was removed from his legal proceedings, he no longer had access to his case nor any of the officials who had any power to change his case. Kafka’s depicts this process similarly in The Trial, Josef K. has very little to no access to his case and absolutely none surrounding its details, while he is not physically removed from the case he is removed from the case based on the inaccessibility of the courts, the judges and even legal counsel. Dreyfus was similarly removed from the country in order to serve his sentence and it was not until others began to p...
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... of Kafka’s The Trial and brings to light some of the frightening realities of the legal system during the early to mid 20th century. Whether it is the inaccessible court or lawyers, or the complete disregard for evidence and documentation. Even if some of the fault lies in the accused for not understanding the system, many trials in this period reflected poor practices of justice particularly so in the case of Bukharin and Dreyfus. Kafka’s work truly encapsulates the legal system both before and after The Trial was written incredibly effectively. It gives a clear idea as to the how miscarriages of justice can occur and what changes had to be made to the legal system in order resolve these issues. It is perhaps arguable that the courts today still face some of these issues and that Kafka’s work is still relevant in determining some of our legal principles today.
Ever since human civilization came into existence, people have been putting rules in place to determine who is behaving according to social norms and moral values and who is not. Because the majority of Western societies have historically been democratic, it makes sense that the public have a say in the enforcement of said rules. It is for this reason that the trial became a popular means of deciding upon punishment for those perceived to have broken the law, while also allowing them an opportunity to testify against their charges. Socrates underwent this process in 399 BC on charges of impiety and corruption of the youth of Athens , as did Louis Riel in 1885 on charges of treason for leading a Métis rebellion . Although they lived during vastly
Kafka’s In the Penal Colony is a story about the use of torture tools which cause death sentences into effect, within 12 hours of torment and the convicted, in the end dies. Lets regard the roots of this subject and its idea of hope....
At trial, your life is in the palms of strangers who decide your fate to walk free or be sentenced and charged with a crime. Juries and judges are the main components of trials and differ at both the state and federal level. A respectable citizen selected for jury duty can determine whether the evidence presented was doubtfully valid enough to convict someone without full knowledge of the criminal justice system or the elements of a trial. In this paper, juries and their powers will be analyzed, relevant cases pertaining to jury nullification will be expanded and evaluated, the media’s part on juries discretion, and finally the instructions judges give or may not include for juries in the court.
Gennaro Santangelo’s criticism of Crime and Punishment fully inspects the motives behind Raskolnikov’s murder, the driving influence on the plot of the book, but he only partially probes the resultant ramifications that emerge in the forms of choices that Raskolnikov makes that resolve the failures of his original goals. Overall, in the context of the paper’s subject, the information Santangelo chooses to include and omit make sense, but the crucial results, or how Raskolnikov eventually reverses his original motivations, are insufficiently appraised. Santangelo’s essay, however fascinating, seems like it does not tell the complete story, that it needs a complementary work to fulfill its purpose. That work, should it have properly met its goal, is beginning to
What do we know about the criminal justice system? The criminal justice system is a series of organizations that are involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and jailing those involved in crimes; along with the system, regular citizens are summoned for jury duty in order to contemplate whether the defendant is guilty or not. It appears to be a rather secure, fair, and trustworthy system; one that should work relatively well, right? Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is an ultra-costly and ultra-punitive; the system is neither protecting victims nor rehabilitating lawbreakers. For example, trial by jury; there is usually a small amount of people in the jury who actually considered that another being’s life is on the line. In trial by jury, the court is literally trusting the life of another being in the hands of twelve strangers who need to argue with each other like kids until they conclude a verdict. In the play, Twelve Angry Men, a group of men are summoned for jury duty and almost all of the men would rather conclude a verdict immediately and leave; except for one, Juror #8. He managed to detain the group by requesting for a discussion of the murder trial before voting “guilty” or “not guilty.” Not once did Juror #8 allow the others to influence him unless they had a valid explanation.
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment explores the themes of guilt and the consequences of committing immoral actions. Of all the deep, thought-provoking concepts put forth in Crime and punishment, the idea that guilt can be an adequate punishment more valid than any punishment executed by society as a whole is the most far reaching and supported by the novel. Crime and Punishment follows Rodian Raskolnikov’s life from just a few days before he commits two brutal murders to when he confesses his crimes and is convicted and sentenced to several years in prison. Initially, Rodian had successfully gotten away with the murder of two people. Raskolnikov’s guilt-driven madness has given him an immunity and even investigators he confesses to think he couldn’t be guilty. As a result, his guilt continues to feed on his conscience to the point where he is constantly miserable. Raskolnikov’s true punishment is the futility of his attempt to escape the guilt of his actions without confessing and feeling adequately punished.
as a form of hired help since he had taken the job to pay for his
Robinson trial; (2) prejustice and its effects on the processes of the law and society; (3)
In closing, the criminal trial process has been able to reflect the morals and ethics of society to a great extent, despite the few limitations, which hinder its effectiveness. The moral and ethical standards have been effectively been reflected to a great extent in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury
The aim of this paper is study the same primary sources that other historians have studied and see what conclusions if any can be drawn from them. The primary sources that will be used in this paper include but are not limited to online transcripts of the trial records, and other material written by the many historians of the years.
Linder, Douglas. “The Trial of Bruno Hauptmann.” Jurist Law. Jurist, 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. Oxford, Edward. "The Other Trial Of The Century." American History 30.3 (1995):
Franz Kafka’s famously translated novel The Trial was thought by many to be strongly influenced by his strong background and affiliations with theater and literature. Within the novel, Kafka refers to various types of the art form including, physical art, performing arts and acting, and the art of how a person moves and/or interacts with others. Critics have argued that Kafka’s background was the influence to the novel, while others strongly disagree. Was Kafka’s references to the performing arts within the novel his way of portraying life as a play, something that is scripted and planned out or was it simply the main character treating his situation as an unrealistic event and a joke?
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.
No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that made him so well-known. With all of his influences combined, Franz Kafka developed a writing style so distinct that he founded a semi-genre all his own: kafkaism.
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.