I just finished the Trial by Kafka

I just finished the Trial by Kafka

Does anyone else think K. was guilty? Why did he walk away from the policeman right at the end? Why did he act all weird and start fainting when he was in the offices of the Court?

But guilty, here's the thing, guilty of what, because in this book nobody ever says what it is K is being accused of. Are you implying that being guilty is a state in and of itself, non-transitive so to speak, or that this is something the book is saying. I don't know.

He was guilty of being born, poor lad.

I'm saying that K. knows (or thinks) he's guilty - of something. But he won't admit it to himself.

Else I find it hard to explain his strange behaviour. And frankly, at certain points what must be hallucinations or his mind going.

Like the whipping scene. He sees the wardens being whipped and then the next day opens the same door and sees exactly the same thing in the lumber room. Or how the cathedral goes completely dark in the middle of the day.

Yes, guilty is a condition of existence. We make too many bargains whereby our values are always compromised, shifting. It is the substrate of behavior itself. It may be disempowering or some shit like that, but that does not mean that the walls aren't closing in on K, and that a rudiment of existence, which refuses whatsoever to follow rationality and logic to their final conclusions, always suspended, until the guarantor of all ends, death, inflicted from without, comes.

It certainly feels like that is the case, though a completely prosaic reading can also give you that if all insists upon one being guilty one may well start acting the part,

Hmm yes. I've started to doubt my theory because I was thinking along those lines just now, while I was on the toilet.

At the start of the story K. is convinced of his innocence and so sure of himself. But then he's subjected to so many people saying he could be guilty.

Perhaps this is closer to the truth: K. didn't break any conventional law. He's "constitutionally innocent" as it were. But he's guilty in the sense that he's done bad things in his life, guilty in the sense that every single one of us is guilty.

And since his charges are kept secret, and this Court doesn't operate rationally or according to any fair or just code, being guilty of anything at all (rather than breaking the real law) is enough for them to take you down.

As the priest says at the end, "it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary"

Oh god it's all so depressing

This.
Kafka is the foundation that Beckett and Camus are built upon.
The Trial is an absurdist novel, one in which the environment is the source of oppression, confusion, complexity, and isolation. K. was guilty of being. Guilt is intrinsic to his being.
The Kafkaesque is best understood by looking at Kafka's inverse: Nietzsche.
Take the Overman and inverse all of his core aspects and you have K. and also Gregor Samsa All of their actions are reactions. Rather than impose his will on the world, the world imposes its will upon him. And it isn't that he lacks the Nietzschean Will to Power; that philosophy doesn't even apply. Kafka's characters don't have the sort of mental foothold to thrust themselves forward, they're driftwood being thrown by waves, leaves in the wind. It would be laughable to suggest to Gregor Samsa to "will" his way out.
Kafka's characters are like children in Asterion's labyrinth: they shouldn't be, and yet they are, and thus they are guilty.

Bump

"guilt is never to be doubted"

Guilty until proved guilty

Obviously he's fucking guilty.

He's guilty of being a pedophile. It's not some pretentious metaphor about existence; K/Kafka wanted to fuck kids and he was ashamed and desperate for punishment

HE. WAS. A. JEW.

Like honestly if you can't read that into the fact that the trial was written during the height of nationalism by Kafka as a German speaking Jew in half czech half german prague you're an illiterate mongoloid.

nice BAIT

>read that into the fact
>literally letting your ideology do your thinking for you
Kafka is easily in the top five most written about novelists of all time, his personal letters and diaries are published as books, as well as interviews and biographies.
If you're the guy that's going to convince the world that his most acclaimed work boils down to >muh jews you've got plenty of critical material to work with, you don't have to rely on /pol/ memes

Yeah, you see, that's interesting to contrast to the real world. In the real world, you cannot be subjected to some odd form of lottery style vigilante justice. You would have grounds to have your own justice. This is what's great about America, there are some rules you just can't break, which makes The Trial such an interesting contrast to reality. You see, it doesn't matter who you are, in THIS COUNTRY you are innocent until proven guilty. In THIS COUNTRY people are given due process, a fair trial, and an opportunity to mount an honest defense. In fact, I'm pretty such the founders of America were such stalwart wardens of this form of freedom that they ensured for centuries to come no man could break them. This allows the average American their birthright: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

True. Not even the most powerful in America dare tread on the law openly. That's where the hard hitters fight their battles, in the courts. You're an idiot if you think physical violence is to be feared in a high profile situation like The Trial.

>Like honestly if you can't read that into the fact that the trial was written during the height of nationalism by Kafka as a German speaking Jew in half czech half german prague you're an illiterate mongoloid.

The Trial was written during 1914/15. That's not the height of German nationalism by a long shot. Besides, he lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was a multi-national state and during the first years of WW1 that state was rallying the people using the person of the Emperor which a great many of his subject still respected at that point (even if they couldn't stand the political situation and dysfunction in the levels below him)

Further to this, I strongly recommend this book if you're interested in what was happening in A-H and the German Empire during WW1

>in THIS COUNTRY
>America

I am from the UK and although we don't have a codified constitution in THIS country what we do share with the USA is the Common Law. That is to say, the law of the land develops "from below" via precedent and build up of a body of case law over time.

It's interesting to compare this with the Continental civil (or Napoleonic) law, where instead of coming from below, judges take their cues from an enlightened code (which comes "from above") that sets out the rights people have. Is this more susceptible to the bureaucracy and corruption like we see in the Trial? Or is what truly matters the strength and integrity of the institutions in question?

>A-H
>not a fucking cesspool of nationalism and peoples trying to cut each other's throats for independence
Making my own case desu

don't be ridiculous, the dirty irish are the true scum of the earth. fucking hibernians got their hands in every pot.

I unironically mean this. The pig ugly irish and their crusty ass milk skin are behind every evil to befall western civilization and i regret that Cromwell was unable to kill them all off when he had the chance.

And if any of you shamrock suckers come at me with your "muh joyce" crap I'm gonna tell you to suck off st paddy and get fucked by a snake. He was a hack who wrote in english, not gaelic and was a crypto hiberno masquerading as a civilized englishman.

A-H was more resilient than is commonly thought. All those different nations and ethnicities came together to mobilise for war because the vast majority placed loyalty to the Emperor above other loyalties. Things only began to really fall apart after the immense strains of fighting (and losing) the war and the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916 was also huge

They were cutting each other's throats and the entire system was a complete and total mess. Some of the men were sent off without arms and they didn't have the huge population and low industrial level that justified Russia's doing the same. The patchwork of different countries caused their railways to be a nightmare to traverse with hundreds of different railway gauges such that their troop movement was laughably slow during the early days of the war. The Hungarian diet was quite honestly the most disgustingly xenophobic and autocratic it could have been and put the Russian czars to shame in terms of oppressing minorities. The Austrian diet was equally incompetent given that it would allow minorities to speak in their own languages in session but neglected to provide translators for all members such that excessively long speeches would be given in a language only the speaker understood.

Of course be was guilty. He wouldn't have been sentenced otherwise.

So Kafka just hated whitey?

Yeah, you see, it's funny, because common law was incorporated well into America, and it's clear why they did away with archaic practices like Napoleonic law. We really hit home with the every man is equal and inalienable rights but too. I'm glad I live in a country where people can exercise their rights.

He was referring to K. Sorry if that wasn't clear. K was put upon for his jewishness.

I'm not denying that A-H was terribly dysfunctional. It certainly was. I'm saying that you're exaggerating the strength of nationalism prior to WW1 - there was no serious push for independence from any of the major constituent nations until the cataclysm of WW1

So Franz Ferdinand wasn't looking to appease anyone with his push for a Triple Monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Croatia? There was no strong feelings of slavic nationalism and resentment within the empire? The minorities never did anything against the ruling family up to and including political assassination and terrorism?

>The Kafkaesque is best understood by looking at Kafka's inverse: Nietzsche.
Take the Overman and inverse all of his core aspects and you have K. and also Gregor Samsa All of their actions are reactions. Rather than impose his will on the world, the world imposes its will upon him. And it isn't that he lacks the Nietzschean Will to Power; that philosophy doesn't even apply. Kafka's characters don't have the sort of mental foothold to thrust themselves forward, they're driftwood being thrown by waves, leaves in the wind. It would be laughable to suggest to Gregor Samsa to "will" his way out.
Kafka's characters are like children in Asterion's labyrinth: they shouldn't be, and yet they are, and thus they are guilty.
good job rehashing the generic pop culture idea of kafka that is entirely wrong

I disagree with this. I think the point of Kafka is that God cannot hear people. In much the same way we can't comprehend the sounds an animal makes as words. Also there is a bureaucracy in heaven leading up to god and the angles have no interest in faithfully communicating the wishes of man to god or vice versa. Take away omniscience even a bit and god is terrifying.

There was plenty of resentment.

But using your reasoning, the A-H was more stable than the USA. Where were A-H's civil wars? The big rebellions? How many US Presidents were assassinated?

The fact is that despite all these "strong feelings" the A-H state was cohesive for a very long time and it took WW1, the empire-killing war, to end it. Which is remarkable when you consider all that dysfunction.

USA has had decades of civil unrest and political assassination what the fuck are you smoking

That's my point!

I'm saying that A-H wasn't *especially* unstable, compared to its peer nations, despite all the dysfunction and the different nations of the empire bitching at each other all the time.

The USA despite its civil war assassinations is (rightly) regarded as one of the most stable countries in world history.

Therefore, it's *very* unfair to single out A-H and say that it was a basket case because Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and the pan-Slavic movement and other issues. Because it was actually a resilient state when it counted and managed to mobilise an incredible amount of resources for a single-minded war effort, which shouldn't have been possible if all its constituent parts hated each other

i remember this from the end of eva

can you adequately explain how he is wrong, while also offering your idea of kafka

Jesus christ you're a mess of an Austrian cocksucker. I'd rather have a byzaboo than your unseemly lot.

Fuck you

I think he raped that woman in the apartment.

existing.
my theory is that the court system represents the higher powers of the Earth, aka God/Holy Judgement/higher workings of heaven, which explains why nobody ever sees the higher members of the court and why the priest was so knowledgeable about the court

the court represents all systems. we as an individual give these systems power by believing in them (law, religion, government).