The Trial: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Trial" is a novel by Franz Kafka that explores themes of existential anxiety, bureaucracy, and the absurdity of the legal system through the experiences of its protagonist, Joseph K. The story begins with K., a conventional bank employee, who is unexpectedly arrested without being informed of the charges against him. Throughout his bewildering journey, K. interacts with a range of characters that represent various facets of the opaque judicial system.
Key characters include K.'s landlady, Frau Grubach, who supports him despite her inability to assist; Fräulein Bürstner, who maintains a distance from K.; and Huld, K.'s eccentric lawyer, whose ambiguous actions reflect the frustrating nature of legal help. Other notable figures include Titorelli, an artist who sheds light on the complexities of the law, and the Prison Chaplain, who embodies the system's indifferent authority. Each character contributes to the overarching sense of entrapment and confusion that K. faces, ultimately highlighting Kafka's critique of societal structures and the individual's struggle for meaning within them. This analysis invites readers to delve deeper into the complexities of Kafka's characters and the themes they represent.
The Trial: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Franz Kafka
First published: Der Prozess, 1925 (English translation, 1937; restored German edition, 1982; new English translation, 1998)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Germany
Plot: Symbolic realism
Time: Twentieth century
Joseph K., an employee in a bank. He is a man without particular qualities or abilities, a fact that makes doubly strange his “arrest” by the officer of the Court in the large city where K. lives. K.'s life is purely conventional and resembles the life of any other person of his class. Consequently, he tries in vain to discover how he has aroused the suspicion of the Court. His honesty is conventional; his sins, with Elsa the waitress, are conventional; and he has no striking or dangerous ambitions. He is a man without a face; at the most, he can only ask questions, and he receives no answers that clarify the strange world of courts and court functionaries in which he is compelled to wander.
Frau Grubach, K.'s landlady. She has a high opinion of K. and is deeply shocked by his arrest. She can do nothing to help him.
Fräulein Bürstner, a respectable young woman who also lives in Frau Grubach's house. She avoids any close entanglement with K.
The Assistant Manager, K.'s superior at the bank. He invites K. to social occasions that K. cannot attend because of his troubles with the Court. He is also eager to invade K.'s proper area of authority.
The Examining Magistrate, the official who opens the formal investigation of K.'s offense. He conducts an unruly, arbitrary, and unsympathetic hearing.
The Washerwoman, an amiable but loose woman who has her dwelling in the court building. She is at the disposal of all the functionaries of the system.
The Usher, the subservient husband of the Washerwoman. His submission to official authority is, like his wife's, a sign of the absorption of the individual into the system.
The Clerk of Inquiries, a minor official who reveals court procedures to newly arrested persons.
Franz and Willem, minor officers of the Court who must endure the attentions of The Whipper because K. has complained to the Court about them.
Uncle Karl (Albert K.), Joseph K.'s uncle, who is determined that K. shall have good legal help in his difficulties.
Huld, the lawyer, an ailing and eccentric man who is hand in glove with the Court. He keeps his great knowledge of the law half-hidden from K., who finally dismisses the lawyer as a man whose efforts will be useless.
Leni, the notably promiscuous servant at the lawyer's house. Full of kind instructions to K., she tells him how to get along with the erratic Huld.
Block, a tradesman who has been waiting for five and a half years for Huld to do something for him. He lives at the lawyer's house so that he can be ready for consultations at odd hours.
The Manufacturer, one of K.'s clients. He expresses sympathy for K.'s plight and sends K. to an artist acquaintance, Titorelli, as a means of influencing the Court in K.'s favor.
Titorelli, an impoverished painter who lives in an attic just off the courts of justice. He paints many a magistrate in uneasy and yet traditional poses. He explains in great detail to K. The different kinds of sentences an accused person can receive. He also reveals the contrast between what the law is supposed to do and how it actually works.
The Prison Chaplain, whom K. encounters as the preacher at the cathedral in the town. The Chaplain tells K. A long story about a door guarded by a Tartar; it is a door that somehow exists especially for K. Despite his sympathy, the Chaplain finally reveals himself as merely one more employee of the Court.