The Trial

By Franz Kafka

The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader. The terrifying tale of Joseph K, a respectable functionary in a bank, who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. A nightmare vision of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the mad agendas of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.

Look at Joseph K., a bank officer living in a country with a constitution. He wakes up one day with strange men in his apartment telling him he's under arrest. Why or for what offense, no one knows. The arresting officers themselves don't know and can't tell him. Even if he's under arrest, however, no one picks him up or locks him in jail. He can still go to his office, work, perform his customary daily chores, and do whatever he wants to do as he awaits his trial. But he is understandably anxious and worried. He is, after all, charged with an unknown but very grave offense. He has a criminal case. He is an accused. He is under arrest.

For this problem he consults so many. He gets a lawyer. His uncle comes to his aid. He talks with his lawyer's other client--also charged and under arrest like him. He consults other people, a painter (who is said to know the "Court"), some women, a priest, etc. about his case. But no one can tell him what the charge is and what his sentence will be. The "Examining Magistrate," the "Judges," the "Court," the proceedings/ trial, and even the "Law" itself--they all seem to be unsolvable enigmas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Jan 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9783736802391

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was born to Jewish parents in Bohemia in 1883. Kafka’s father was a luxury goods retailer who worked long hours and as a result never became close with his son. Kafka’s relationship with his father greatly influenced his later writing and directly informed his Brief an den Vater (Letter to His Father). Kafka had a thorough education and was fluent in both German and Czech. As a young man, he was hired to work at an insurance company where he was quickly promoted despite his desire to devote his time to writing rather than insurance. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote a great number of stories, letters, and essays, but burned the majority of his work before his death and requested that his friend Max Brod burn the rest. Brod, however, did not fulfill this request and published many of the works in the years following Kafka’s death of tuberculosis in 1924. Thus, most of Kafka’s works were published posthumously, and he did not live to see them recognized as some of the most important examples of literature of the twentieth century. Kafka’s works are considered among the most significant pieces of existentialist writing, and he is remembered for his poignant depictions of internal conflicts with alienation and oppression. Some of Kafka’s most famous works include The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle.