Topic > The analysis of the trial: political, legal and philosophical interpretations.

The trial is Franz Kafka's best-known novel, published in Berlin in 1926. The original manuscripts were collected and prepared for publication by Max Brod, l Kafka's editor, closest friend, two years after the author's death. Brod says the manuscript had no title, but Kafka always called it "The Trial." Kafka considered this book unfinished, even though the last chapter was already written. Kafka thought it was necessary to add some more aspects to the mysterious process, however Brod says that if he had not known that Kafka wanted to continue this work, he might not have realized that the book was not finished. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The novel tells the story of a banker, who one day is arrested by two policemen for a crime that he was not told about or was not told about. the reader. The unusual arrest on unnamed charges leaves the unfortunate Joseph K confused and lost in the labyrinths of the legal system. Desperate and overwhelmed, he imagines scenarios and tricks that will ultimately lead him to experience the legal nightmare and absurdity of life. No longer knowing who to trust, he draws up his own 'defense' in which he accepts the crime and asks for forgiveness, thus signing his punishment and finally his execution. In the last chapter, Joseph K is killed "like a dog", stabbed by the two guards who first arrested him. From a political point of view, the citizen is accused of something he never did. In the end he is not accused according to the rules, but all he has to do is show up in court and ends up killed "like a dog" without even knowing the accusation, having never seen the judge. This is a citizen of any indisputably authoritarian country. In the context of the Habsburg monarchy, where Kafka's novels are often set, perhaps every citizen feels guilty before the law, guilty for something that no one could tell. In this case, The Trial can be interpreted as a criticism of the bureaucracy and the overall political and social situation of the monarchy. According to this political interpretation, the Trial is a prophetic Roman, born with the horrors of the Second World War. Millions of people were killed as tragically as Joseph K, and Joseph K is one of the first brilliant representatives of that time, when human rights were formally written, but never implemented. Kafka has always been fascinated by the complexity and paradoxes of the law. From the legal aspect, law is created for the common good of society, and therefore must be respected, regardless of one's understanding or knowledge of it. This theory is shown in Kafka's parable "Before the Law". Before the Law tells the story of a man who wants to understand and have access to the law, but the gatekeeper gave him a challenge to access the law. The man eventually grows old trying to access the law and before dying he asks the gatekeeper one more time if he can enter the door. The gatekeeper replies that that door was made for that very man and since the man is dying, the door (and the entrance to the law) would now be closed. In other words, this can be called “the door of death”; which is a paradox: why should the door of the court be the door of death? It is the law that takes man there and again the law that does not allow him to get close to it. Joseph K's last thoughts before his death are: 'Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the high court where he had never reached?”. Kafka suggests that the law is abstract and being inaccessible, the people who are subject to it do not even know its foundations, so people are being obeyed by something they do not understand,'’.