09.03.18 The Trial (movie) Notes

Orson Welles: born 1915 in Wisconsin to British-descended parents.  His parents divorced when he was young and both moved to Chicago, then both died young.  They were not wealthy.  He was married 3 times, a political leftist (bordering on Socialism), and he changed residences (Europe to US) 3 times, and moved around a bit within Europe.  He was a strong critic of capitalism.  He was quite an insider-outsider (whereas Kafka was well-connected with the literary elite of Prague) and would get Hollywood  funding for his projects and then get it pulled again.  Started more than he ever finished, doing things for a few months or weeks before quitting.  He was talented in radio, theater, film acting, directing, narration, and TV.  Despite his rocky resume, he maintained a great deal of influence, especially for directors to follow.  He worked on War of the Worlds (1938, CBS Radio), Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1941), Othello (1952), Touch of Evil (1958), The Trial (1962).  He was fond of working with major literary works and serious intellectual and political themes.

Question of the Day: Does Welles’s visual language capture Kafka’s The Trial?

Plot out of order… what does it do?

Kafka avoids visual detail that Welles chooses to include, which may slightly skew the ability of the movie to reflect the novel.  Clear sets, such as K’s room, can reveal things well.  However, Welles captures the intangible things that are part of the novel: chiaroscuro, un/seen, camera tricks create similar sense to what we get when reading.

Interesting that the camera is never directly centered, always too far or too close to be comfortable.

Whipping scene with the strobe effect of the light is genius.  The strobe effect heightens tension by making us uncertain of where things are and by keeping us from seeing the things we want to see.

Quiet spaces and loud spaces: interrogation room is loud/ hallway is silent, closet where men are being whipped is loud, rest of the Bank is quiet.

Everything seems binary: there is one thing, and then its opposite.  Examples: Josef K tends to be wearing light colors when everyone else is wearing dark, or when he is wearing dark colors everything else is light.  When he speaks with women, they seem to be smaller than he is, but men are always larger.

Josef against the door to the interrogation room just like the man against the door leading to the Law.

Everything in Josef’s personal life is ordered, neat, organized (rows of desks at the office, his room at home).  Things associated with the Court are jumbled, disorganized, thrown together.

Josef as an individualist versus the Court as Stalinist.

Sense of paranoia intensified by strange camera angles that play up environmental threats.  Impending danger from everywhere!  When K is at the lawyer’s house, trying to get away, a huge shadow falls across him.  Shadows like this are everywhere, heightening sense of fear and foreboding.

Physical spaces seem to confine or dominate the characters of this movie.  The court guard walking through scaffolding bends down and walks through it, representing the actual constraints placed on him by the Court.  Some, like the Student, have learned to move fluidly through the spaces.

The moment with the light over Josef’s head is a classic film noir technique, creating this sensation of being menacing, but it’s not really used at all.  He doesn’t even get asked any questions!  They dress like typical noir mafia types, with their fedoras and trenchcoats, but they don’t act like it.

Josef walks through the accused men outside, they have numbers around their necks and little clothing.  They seem somewhat like concentration camp inmates, and behave like ghosts.  They’re contrasted violently against the world around them, brightly lit when the background is so black.  The veiled statue above them raises questions: is she Justitia? an angel? the Virgin Mary?  Whoever she is, she seems benevolent, but she is hidden from these men.

Is this a critique of political/ economic absolutes?  Both the Stalinist Soviet Union and the hyper-capitalism of the US can crush people and remove their individuality.

When K goes into a new room, it’s like entering a new world, unrelated to the previous rooms. (Flux/ hodgepodge/ dreamlike physical space as in the novel.)  You begin to wonder whether the rooms are still in the same building.  But that always signifies a change of mood or a change of focus. There’s also a conflict between architectural styles (baroque versus soviet versus bauhaus all in about a block) which creates a sense of discontinuity and disorientation.  The visual language here does what Kafka’s language does in the novel, carrying a lot of the meaning that used to rest on particular words.   Senses of dis/continuity, un/real…

09.03.16 The Trial (Movie) Part 1

Why we’re doing this: We care about the notion of the Kafkaesque because it is a concept that helps us understand things in the world.  Things like Guantanamo Bay and the failing economy seem to happen for no discernible reason, and by viewing them through the concept of the Kafkaesque we can more easily approach them.

Question of the day: True or false: Welles’s “The Trial’ is a faithful copy of the original.

In “The Trial,” it is apparent that the director is somehow mimicking or importing a sense of the Kafkaesque.

Things that stood out:

• the Bank (rows of desks, typewriters),
• K’s room (seemed small, oddly-proportioned, low ceiling, typical Welles format, attached to Ms. Burstner’s room, very organized),
• K finds papers quickly (rather than fumbling as in the book),
• hugging the walls as they move,
• detail that’s included although Kafka leaves so much out (especially detail that’s there before it comes to K’s attention, which is nonexistent in the book),
• huge grey apartment buildings (dirty, dark, Soviet, empty wasteland, huge and intimidating compared to claustrophobic indoors, inner & outer architecture don’t match, not of Kafka’s Trial, “Architecture gives an impression of how easily the individual can be destroyed.” (see Jordan Mohr’s blog))

K’s room seems a mirror of him: tidy, hyper-organized, bland, lacking personality

Josef is much more active in this than in the book.  He asks more than once what he’s being charged with, he suggests getting a lawyer, he even threatens to file a formal complaint but drops it at the idea of being brought to “the station” (whereever that is…).

Anthony Perkins: the right actor?  Seems not very authoritative, young, surprisingly tall & thin.  He looks very American.

We get details in the movie that are just plain missing from Kafka’s work because the medium is a visual language.  This is primarily because Kafka avoids giving too many visual cues.  He deliberately works to use ambiguous words.  Now in movie form there has to be a concrete set, so they have to come up with other ways to portray the same thing.  The film is from the era when quick cuts still signified something, and we have to be aware of what’s being portrayed.  The shot choices are also very significant.

Maybe this is like any movie of a book: something has to be left on the page, and something has to be brought into it.  It’s kind of like translating the German to the English, because there are words and cultural markers that simply cannot be transferred.  It’s just a translation, and it’s the best the translator knew how to do, but there are always differences.  It is beneficial to compare them, but it is also beneficial to remain aware that they are totally different media with different goals.

The Bank in the movie is translated to The Office.  Rather than a nice 19th century building with pretty offices with windows, it’s become a factory for white collar work.  Welles is, perhaps, trying to relate it more clearly to 1960s America, to make something that’s recognizable to his audience and yet portrays them as cogs in the machine in order to jar them out of the way they live.  Wide rooms with rows of desks, a sort of communal drabness that reminds people of the threat of communism and the Soviets. Women are always on typewriters, men always have phones and paper- some kind of social/ gender roles commentary.  The sounds of typing and talking and ringing together come across like the hum in a beehive.  (The movie is much more specific to the era in which it was produced than the novel.)

Links to “The Trial” on YouTube:

YouTube – The Trial 1

YouTube – The Trial 2

YouTube – The Trial 3

YouTube – The Trial 4

YouTube – The Trial 5

YouTube – The Trial 6

YouTube – The Trial 7

YouTube – The Trial 8

YouTube – The Trial 9

YouTube – The Trial 10

YouTube – The Trial 11

09.03.11 The Trial: In Summary

Question of the Day: What’s the point of reading The Trial? OR True/False: There is no point to reading The Trial.

Perhaps the point of reading Kafka is to find out that there is no point, but you should still try.  Kafka is reflecting on his own life and on society in general, his fears about companionship and relationships and women and society.  The Trial is a fearscape, externalizing a mood of anxiety that most of us feel: a world composed of structuralized fears.

Exposition on the wages of history.  No matter what changes, there will always be a hierarchy of the powerful manipulating the oppressed.  Kafka is revealing the contradiction inherent in people’s personalities: they can be dissatisfied as cogs in the machine and know that they are oppressed, but they are too afraid of lawlessness and change to rebel.  (An imperfect system is better than no system.)

Everything is subjective, and we all interpret things subjectively, and there is no truism which applies to everyone.  The author does not hand down a Great True Lesson to the reader, because there is no Great True Lesson to give, only experience and the interpretation of experience.

All of this ties to the Court and the Law.  It’s not strictly true that there is no point/truth/Law, but there is a possibility that there might not be a point/truth/Law.  Something about questioning whether the point/truth/Law is there or not makes us look at it more closely, consider it carefully, and generate meaning on our own.  “They might not exist, but we can pursue them as though they did exist, and create a meaning as it makes sense to us, and fill in what they might have said if they could get to us.”  Logically we may know that we will never get there but it’s worth pursuing and finding meaning in what there is.

Does Josef come to terms with his mortality? It’s ambiguous: he seems prepared for the men to arrive, then he tries to run, then he accepts them, then right at the end: “wait, wait, maybe… *stabbed*”.

This book is most frustrating to us because we follow Josef on a search for meaning, and at the end nothing is revealed to him, and that bothers us because we want things to be revealed to us.  On reflection, we learned stuff, but at the time it felt like there was nothing to learn.

09.03.04 Notes on The Trial Chapters 9-10

Question of the Day: 1. What the ____  2. What’s the relationship between K and the Law?

Chapter 10: K just quits, is an accomplice in his own death (but in some sense, that’s consistent with his choosing his fate through the rest of the book) Maybe to some extent this is like the old K, the jerk that he was at the beginning, acting on his own accord but accepting the things that happen to him.  There seems to be an unrealistic shift in K’s attitude toward the trial, except he always makes impulsive decisions.  [This unrealism may stem from the fact that Kafka excels at writing things all in one go, and it was very hard for him to sustain writing long enough to produce a novel.]

Would the book still satisfy were it complete?  One of the nice things about it is that the reader gets to interpret it, and if Josef had been handed a divine message that would have been a complete break with the rest of the book.  (Journey not the goal idea.)  We don’t want him to become some archetypal hero character who fixes everything, we don’t want a neatly wrapped up ending.  Still, might there be more?  Might there be more effort and more experiences?  Josef doesn’t have to discover the higher officials or read the Law, but in exploring more or offering the possibility of further searching there could perhaps be more satisfaction.  Josef doesn’t really ever participate in the search for meaning/substance/reasons behind the trial.  It would also suck to have a deus-ex-machina rain of alligators that destroys society or something like that.

The parable related by the priest in Chapter 9 seems almost out of character because it was so informative. (And also because he published it separately before the novel and Frankensteined it in.)  However, it really does shed so much light on all of the proceedings.  It’s much easier to understand, more concise, less clumsy than the novel’s execution.  The parable: man comes from the country (a lawless place, state of nature, Locke/Hobbes) and enters to see the Law.  His waiting there is, to some extent, creating the Law because he allows himself to be submissive to another person, which would not have been necessary in the lawless country.  The doorkeeper tells him that he may not go in but does not prevent him from doing so. This man, to some extent, represents all of us: as Jordan claims “we wait and hope to be shown the way, sometimes at great cost.” We are often too afraid to make our own way, and rely on people we see as more powerful or knowledgeable to give us permission and direction.  The man can also be the reader of this novel, sitting and waiting to be let in to understand and entirely denied that chance.

This book is kind of like an infinitely wrapped white elephant gift: you unwrap box after box after box and when you finally get to the bottom it’s a pinecone or a piece of string or a single sock.

Would you read the Law books, if you had them?  Yes: opportunity for understanding, chance to see things from a new perspective.  No: ignorance is bliss, what if you don’t like the meaning, what if it’s not the same as what you wanted, without it the book is open to more interpretation and rereading.

There is evidence that Kafka worshipped and feared the process of being a reader.  He was drawn to it as well as scared of it: if you opened yourself up enough to a novel, it would inscribe itself on your soul and destroy you, yet there was nothing he’d rather do than pursue the truth of the novel.

09.03.04 The Trial Chapters 9-10 Response

What the *censoredcensoredcensoredcensored*?!?!?? (Excuse me for a moment. I have to go pick up my book from where I threw it across the room.)

I feel utterly ripped off. I mean, I invested plenty of good time reading this story, right? And between chapters 9 and 10, Kafka skips what appears to be four months of really really important stuff. I’ve grown to expect weird events by the end of the book, and I certainly expected Kafka to kill Josef off just because Kafka tends to do that, but Josef’s casual acceptance of his death is just way too much for me. If there had been even one chapter intervening which illustrated Josef’s transition from listless distraction to acceptance of guilt and/or death, I would have been much more satisfied. This was just… utterly frustrating.

For a while I intended to defend the book using the parable told to Josef by the priest. Much of Josef’s story aligns with it early on. In his attempts to speak with the Court or have a lawyer intervene on his behalf, similarities with the man in the parable who sits outside the door to the Law and begs the doorkeeper to let him in are visible. However, in the parable the man who waits takes years to waste away, and certainly must know his death is coming due to old age. He has given up everything that was valuable to him and has no further purpose in life, and at the very end is granted at least a shining moment when things become a little clearer to him. Josef is not yet this man. It is clear that he is on his way to sacrificing things that matter to him. When he is in his office he can hardly work, and when he is away from it he obsesses over his work. His mind is never with him except when he is focused on his case. But most importantly, Josef has retained his sense of importance to the outside world. The man in the parable leaves his home, his family, and his work behind completely to sit and wait to be admitted to see the Law. In chapter 9, Josef talks about how he has a high stature within the Bank, and how important he is to them, and while this may be being undermined slowly he at least retains a sense of self-preservation. There is a sense in him of his life before he was accused, of himself aside from his case. He has not given himself to it. He is not ready to be taken by it.

By chapter 10 this sense of self-preservation fades entirely. Josef seems to perceive at once why his visitors have come (“They want to finish me off cheaply.” p.224) and yet goes with them more than compliantly, almost willing or eager to embrace his end (he fetches his hat to go out and walks on his own into the street). Interestingly, every passage that was deleted from this chapter is a passage in which Josef attempts to defend himself or offers himself hope of rescue. Kafka clearly wished to remove any sign of Josef’s unwillingness, any struggle against the end. Indeed, “there would be nohing heroic in it were he to resist, to make difficulties for his companions, to snatch at the last appearance of struggling.” (p.225) He even monologues to himself about the silliness of snatching at the world, about how he should go stoically to the end! This man is not the Josef we followed through the rest of the story, who acted on impulse and was quite firmly in the world and attached to it in every way he could find.

When I was a teaching assistant for a creative writing class, I likened the arc of a story to a high dive. In a complete story, we see the main character climbing up to the heights, perhaps bouncing a few times, and diving down to the water below. Josef, it would seem, got turned around on the diving board and did a magnificent swan to the pavement next to the pool. I feel that, in this, Kafka has defeated what he was trying to achieve. This isn’t meaningless in a “futility of the search for meaning” sort of way. That would have come about if Josef had discovered something about the Law or about himself that made him reassess his life and choose death. Instead I feel like the story has pulled the blinds on me and gone on working without letting its audience see. The search for meaning in general is not futile, I have simply been excluded from it. That is not at all the same thing. Bad form, Kafka. Bad form.

09.02.27 The Trial Chapter 8 Response

“What I have to say to him will keep him awake all right,” said K., who wante to let it be known tht his interview with the lawyer promised to be momentous; he wanted Leni to question him about it and only then would he ask her advice.  But Leni merely followed out to the letter the orders he gave her[...] turning right round in the doorway, soup bowl and all.

K. stood gazing after her; now it was definiely settled that he would dismiss the lawyer, and it was just as well that he should have no chance of discussing it beforehand with Leni; the whole affair was rather beyond her scope and she would certainly have tried to dissuade him, possibly she might even have prevailed on him to put it off his time, and he would have continued to be prey to doubts and fears. (171)

It amuses me that Josef thinks he is no longer prey to doubts and fears.  This entire passage is a depiction of his inability to settle on one thing and stick to it with conviction.  It takes him weeks of debating to come to a decision about firing Dr. Huld, and even when he is in the lawyer’s house he thinks to ask the opinions of Leni and Block before actually going through with anything.  This theme holds true throughout the entire novel: every time he makes a decision, he tracks back on himself or allows himself to be derailed.  This is just one more instance of his inability to come to a firm decision.

“The really great lawyers?” asked K.  “Who are they, then? How does one get to them”  So you’ve never heard of them,” said Block. “There’s hardly an accused man who doesn’t spend some time dreaming of hem after hearing about them.  Don’t you give way to that temptation.  I have no idea who the great lawyers are and I don’t believe they can be got at.  I know of no single instance in which it could be definitely asserted that they had intervened.  They do defend certain cases, but one cannot achieve that oneself.  They only defend those whom they wish to defend, and they never take action, I should think, until the case is already beyond the province of the lower Court.  In fact, it’s better to put them out of one’s mind altogether, or else one finds interviews with ordinary lawyers so stale and stupid, with their niggling counsels and proposals- I have experienced it myself- that one feels like throwing the whole thing up and taking to bed with one’s face to the wall.”  (178-179)

This seems familiar.  Oh, right, it’s the exact same case as with the higher court officials and The Law. Josef should be seriously suspicious right now.  There are higher officials of the court, but no one knows who they are.  There are better lawyers, but it is impossible to hire them.  Something is clearly wrong here.  My suspicions that none of this is exactly real are being confirmed more and more with every page I read.  And Block hit the note perfectly when he was talking about the lawyers: “so stale and stupid, with their niggling counsels and proposals.”  What is supposed to be help seems to be more of the Court’s runaround games, and I’m getting a little bit sick of it.

So the lawyer’s methods, to which K. fortunately had not been long enough exposed, amounted to this: that the client finally forgot the whole world and lived only in hope of toiling along his false path until the end of his case should come in sight.  The client ceased to be a client and became the lawyer’s dog.  If the lawyer were to order this man to crawl under the bed as if into a kennel and bark there, he would gladly obey the order. (193-194)

Suddenly I feel as if the whole point of all this nonsense is revealed.  The lawyer and the Court both intend to break the accused entirely from the real world and pull them into a vortex of The Law.  Block, like the rest of the men lining the hallway in the Court offices, has sacrificed his satisfying life in order to clear his name of an unclear charge.  They seem to me like men whose glasses are dirty and scratched- they are scrubbing and scrubbing at a spot that won’t come off, and they can’t see clearly again until they do something about it.  Instead of getting new lenses, they keep squinting through the damaged ones and rubbing at them fruitlessly, waiting for something to change.  For a moment, the narrator gives an utterly clear picture of the whole scenario: “It was humiliating even to an onlooker.”  I hope that Josef can see this and can break free.

09.02.23 Notes on The Trial Chapters 6 & 7

Question of the day: Josef should choose a) definite acquittal, b) ostensible acquittal, or c) indefinite postponement

We’re all feeling some confusion, frustration, incredulity, disgust, or anger… Seriously Kafka, what’s up?

Passage of time: how long has it been?

Industrial feudalism: this system seems to be a modern sort of feudalism and Josef is the serf.  There is an established (yet, to us, unclear) hierarchy of lawyers, judges.

Kafka wrote around a desk job, would go out with friends, then write right before bed. He also recorded his dreams.  He wrote so much of this “in einem Zug,” or all in one breath.  Chapter 7, perhaps, was one of these times.

Family! Suddenly, there’s a family, and they care about Josef, and they know about his trial.  This is a wakeup call: Josef, we need you to clear your name, we need you to deal with this, there are people in this world other than you.

Kafka’s commentary on life?  A sense of “proactive futility.”  Does his whole philosophy come down to “life’s a bitch and then you die”?  Interesting perspective when Josef decides to give an account of his whole life, defending every decision he’s ever made.  Sense of always being on trial, and surveillance versus self-display.  Hooray for him finally stepping back to determine the merit of the things he does!

Question of the day.  Definite acquittal provides a solid answer, and he can at least come to terms with the label.  Ostensible acquittal seems like the best way to get this off his mind, let him be free for now.  Indefinite postponement seems easiest, lets others handle it, and seems like the place where he already is.  Things are already dragging on and on, so perhaps nothing will even change for this one to happen.  The three painting Titorelli pulls out before Josef leaves are all the same, all bleak and unappealing: metaphor for his choices in this trial?

If we go back to the metaphor of the Imperial Message, Josef is now hoping for a message that will let him understand the Law, the court, his own guilt.  The painter is the messenger, but rather than bringing a message from on high he has stolen the information and is attempting to smuggle it.  Really, we see that Josef can never understand this court, can never reach the highest officials, can never come to a conclusion.

This leads to a question.  Neither the lawyer nor the painter knows anyone above the low level judges, and we never encounter anyone above a low level.  So, do the highest level judges (and therefore the Law) even exist?  Maybe Josef is waiting for a message that will never get to him because there is no message. What we find out about the Law is only reported speech, so we aren’t even getting to hear an actual quote but an interpretation of what is said, which leaves room open for ambiguity (as in the story from the first day of class).  What if, really, this is exactly what he says?  What if when he says that the Law allows some things and prohibits others, that is a direct quote?  If the Constitution said “Some stuff is allowed,  some stuff is not allowed,” there would be a serious problem!

Women play an important role again in Chapter 6.  Hierarchy of women in the book: Fraulein Burstner, whom he wants and who has the power to refuse him; Elsa, whom he wants but who isn’t invested in him, but she needs to be paid so she can’t really refuse; the washerwoman, whom he wants and who wants him, but is prevented by her ties to other men from going to him; Leni, whom he wants and who is reaching in some sense for a brush with the higher classes and so throws herself at him.  It is interesting that K is so starved for love and attention that he pursues every single one of these women.

This book, and our discussion of it, spiral around.  We tread over and over the same turf, but we’re slowly revealing more and more and progressing towards a fuller understanding, although it is difficult to see.

09.02.23 Response to Chapters 6 & 7

Dear Mr Kafka,

I have been reading The Trial, and I have enjoyed it very much.  However, I am not certain that I understand your inclusion of Chapters 6 and 7.  Would you mind explaining to me how they are thematically suited to the rest of the novel?  Thank you very much.

Sincerely, D.F.

D.F.,

Reflecting on my work, I believe that the transition from the beginning of The Trial to the middle, marked by the transition from Chapter 5 to Chapter 6, was the most difficult.  Chapters 1-5 were the setup of the novel, where I established what was happening to Josef and attempted to illustrate his personality clearly.  After the fifth chapter, I felt it was time to set everything more fully into motion, to speed things up.  Two things needed to become clear: Josef K. was not alone in the world, acting without friend or advocate, and the case was a matter about which Josef needed to care and take action.  Let me explain further.

Josef does not live in an entirely isolated world. He has a fairly important position in his work, and he has a few friends and acquaintances.  Although his case is handled by a very secretive organization, it is unreasonable for no one in his life to hear about the case.  In dreams, perhaps, one becomes one’s sole advocate, with the whole world standing on the other side.  In truth, Josef’s subordinates at work would discuss the strange happenings, his housemates would discuss the invasion of their home, people he knew and no longer sees would nose around for word of him.  Someone connected to the court would talk.  Word would get out.  And now, Josef must face the people he has not told.  He has maintained a protective layer of self-deception until now, refusing to admit his potential guilt and refusing to consider the impact that such an accusation (no matter how unfounded) can have on his reputation.  His uncle functions as a reminder: there are people who depend on Josef.  His reputation, once besmirched, will hurt the standing of his family, his company, and perhaps even those who associate with him.  Josef has power in his world, and his actions matter.  The visit from his uncle forces him to take action in some direction.  (Imagine where the novel would have progressed had I left this out.  Hundreds of pages of nothing, no change, no action.  How terribly boring!)

Having advocates and responsibilities, however, does not mean that Josef’s troubles are remedied.  The lawyer he meets via his uncle is well-connected to the system of the court, but leads Josef in circles.  It should soon become clear that while he claims to understand the court and have power to influence the men within it, this is not so.   The court has its own Law and its own proceedings.  A lawyer who has studied the functions of the government and the law has no reference to the court which now tries Josef.  Again, Josef must see that although he may have advocates, he cannot trust in anyone else to defend him.  He must take action on his own behalf, rather than hiding behind the experience and half-knowledge of another person.

Left with the charge of defending himself, Josef is at somewhat of a loss.  He must defend himself, but he does not know how best to go about this.  This is where the painter is useful.  The Clerk of Inquiries who works in the court offices has an interest in the trial proceedings, and Josef knows this.  He needs someone who may instead wish for him to successfully defend himself.  The painter at first seems a viable option.  Soon, however, he sees that the painter has reason to be torn in both directions.  No one in this situation is going to help Josef without some measure of personal interest.  Josef must now decide whether to trust this new player, and how much of his information can be trusted.

09.02.18 Notes on The Trial Chapter 4 & 5

Question of the day: What is the minor worry in chapters 4-5?  What is the fundamental anxiety?

Rehashing the facts:  Ch. 4: Josef sits around in his room waiting for Burstner and sends her several letters.  Burstner avoids contact with K to the degree that she moves Montag into her room.  Josef becomes frustrated with Grubach when she is in his room and gets defensive of his feelings for Burstner. (Upset with G’s implication that B is a floozy.)  Montag is sent to K to explain why Burstner won’t see him, but she knows little to nothing.    Ch. 5: At the Bank, Josef wanders into a storeroom and finds his two guards from the first daybeing whipped.  He leaves in horror and comes back the next day only for the scene to begin again where it left off.

Is there some significance to Montag’s name?  The big day has been Sunday previously, and she’s Monday.  Some symbolism of “after it’s all over” or “next.”

“He knew that Fraulein Burstner was an ordinary little typist who could not resist him for long.” (81)  This resistance could be sexually or just refusal to communicate with him.

Whipping takes place in the bank, in a storeroom.  It’s a place where K can acknowledge what’s happening, a place where he has power, place of routine.  This is also the first time the Law has a consequence that’s carried out.

It seems that these people don’t exist outside the roles that K gives them. (When he leaves they disappear, when he returns so do they.)

Chapter 4 thematically similar to “An Imperial Message“: Josef really wants to talk to Burstner, but his vehicle can’t get through, and his message fails.  The same thing happens from Burstner back to Josef.  This carries throughout the novel: every time anyone attempts to communicate with anyone else, it fails.  To himself, Josef is the sun sending messages to others that they should be waiting to receive like gifts.  Others see Josef as the one outside of the circle.  Everyone involved in the court become the nobles there to watch the emperor die, they know the message and what’s happening, and Josef is the dirty peasant standing longingly at the window of his hovel.

This again deals with Jewish philosophy (the act of reading and attempting to interpret can confuse) because the only person who knows the true message is its composer.

THEMATIC ISSUES

Women & power: this is the first time K isn’t getting what he wants, and it’s remarkable that a woman is exerting this sort of control over a situation.

Self-deception: all of Chapter 4 deals with his self-deception in Fraulein Burstner’s case.  He is convinced Montag is blowing things out of proportion, storms off, and then breaks into Burstner’s room.  Truly, he’s the one having exaggerated reactions.

So, what’s the minor worry?  Maybe that F. Burstner doesn’t want to talk to him.  What’s the major worry? Maybe it’s losing his place as a person in the world.

An Imperial Message

Subject: tiny, pathetic serf. YOU. (reader of a book)

Emperor: the sun, but dying, with layers and layers of walls and space keeping him away.  Gives a vital message to the messenger to bring it to you.  (author)

Messenger: super strong, trying to run out to the peasant, but will never ever get there.  (the story,the words)

Palaces and walls as a symbol of the divides between classes, between people, between their understanding of one another.

This becomes a model that Kafka seems to want to tear down: if the author is great and godlike, his wonderful words will never reach you, you pathetic peon.  All you can do is sit at home and imagine.  If we search for the absolute meaning that the author wants us to see, we’re approaching it incorrectly.

09.02.18 Thoughts on Chapters 4 & 5

Here once again we see similar themes to the earlier chapters of the novel.  Chapter 4′s primary themes relate to the asymmetry of information, and Chapter 5 focuses primarily on power versus submission.

In Chapter 4, Josef attempts to communicate again with Fraulein Burstner.  After over a week of notes and whispers and waiting fruitlessly, Josef encounters Fraulein Burstner’s new roommate, Fraulein Montag, who bears a message for him.  The message essentially boils down to this: you don’t need to see me, Josef, so leave me alone.  However, Montag goes on for about three quarters of a page on assumptions and additions.  She has no context for the message she delivers, and so attaches her own personal interpretation to everything that was said as she is speaking to Josef.  Here is a prime example of the asymmetry of information: Josef knows that he wishes to speak to Burstner, and he knows why; Burstner thinks she knows why he wants to see her and doesn’t want to see him; Montag thinks she knows why Josef wants to see Burstner and thinks she knows why Burstner doesn’t want to see him.  This is the exact problem which occurs throughout the novel between Josef and the court.  It is also a problem which could easily be solved by free and open communication, but no one ever communicates freely or clearly.  Here we see the development of yet another theme, which is birthed directly from the information imbalance: assumptions.  In place of seeking actual information from others, the characters of this novel draw unfounded conclusions about the things that are happening to them and around them, then react to those conclusions rather than to the reality of the situation.  Josef does this when he is arrested, when he is brought in for interrogation, and when he returns to the court unsummoned.  Burstner does this when she receives notes from Josef, Frau Grubach does this when she converses with Josef, and even Montag jumps to conclusions after speaking with Burstner.  Assumptions are everywhere in this novel, and they almost always prevent the further exchange of information that would potentially assist the characters.

Chapter 5 deals more with issues of submission and power, specifically the forced submission of other characters to Josef’s actions.  When Josef enters the supply closet (“lumber room”?) he discovers his two guards preparing to be whipped because he complained of their behavior.  This seems to suggest some kind of power over the system: when Josef decides that something should not have happened, there are repercussions.  Furthermore, it is necessary to stage the punishment in a place Josef is likely to notice, so that he will be aware that his wishes have been carried out.  To some extent, this is like children bringing homework to the teacher- evidence that they’ve done what they should, because saying  you did it but leaving it at home isn’t good enough.  Once again we see evidence that Josef’s actions and decisions sway the course of the proceedings within the novel.  Thenn, when Josef leaves in horror and returns the next day to the supply room to check for evidence of the previous day’s events, the scene picks up from where it left off as though no time had passed.  We discussed previously that it seems these people have no purpose or existence outside of their relationship to Josef; this seems to be confirmed as they wink out of existence when he leaves and resume their lives again when he returns.  One of the men even claims to have a girlfriend waiting for him in the street, whom Josef does not see.  This seems to indicate that there is no relationship except to Josef, although the people think they have more complete lives, and the sweetheart is just a fiction because Josef has had no interaction with her in the court.  Josef has total power over the existence of these individuals, and it seems that he could change the entire course of these events if he chose to do so simply by willing it.  The only reason he has not yet done so is, perhaps, because he is too afraid to seize control of the situation.  In the moment when he leaves the two guards to be whipped, his horror and distress force him to make an active decision about events, and because of his strong wish for the punishment to stop, it stops when he leaves.  However, because he returns the next day seeking proof, the scene resumes precisely where he left off.  Perhaps if Josef left the court determined to put the whole thing out of his mind and never looked back, it would all fade away and cease to trouble him.