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MonkeyNotes-The Trial by Franz Kafka
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Curiously naming is a device used. Franz, the warder and K. both stand for Kafka's name. Franz awaiting his finance could be like Kafka's breakup with his fiancée. Dizziness and breathlessness are used to show his confusion in the courtroom and in the painter's place spatial metaphor is used in the maze of courtrooms showing that the trial is complicated. The court even rents out rooms making money.

Deceiving as a metaphor is seen when the doorkeeper in the parable is a slave and the private man a free person.

Huld symbolizes familial authority and divine with which K.'s uncle believes in. But K.'s refusal to give in symbolizes the modern man. Superstition used effectively also when the audience guesses who is guilty by looking at the accused. The court looms large finally as a ubiquitous metaphor dominating the interests of K. and the reader as a theatre where action or non-action is played out.

K.'s observation reveals very clearly that the injustice meted out at every stage of the trial. K. has deep sympathy for the officials and even empathizes with the officials caught in the judicial rut and muddle K. is the narrator commenting on the judicial system as well as the character undergoing the painful experience. The lawyers are humane, jovial and amiable. But they could easily get upset with arrogant behavior. As the novel moves closer to the climax K. loses more and more confidence. Height is a metaphor when K. raises himself to match the manufacturer and the Assistant Manager in their heights. It gives him a sense of control. The Assistant Manager's appearance is like a scepter, again a metaphor hiding his feelings. K. is likewise masking his appearance. He is civil and follows the formalities of courtesy without any genuine feeling. The bottom line is that K.'s career is affected. He is civil and follows the formalities of courtesy without any genuine felling.


The story reveals the painter's deep legal expertise and acumen about the court. The fear of re-arrest, hanging over the accused head is described in spatial terms. It is a spatial swing between being condemned and being free oscillating between death and freedom living a full life as it he is at the point of orbit close to earth and swinging away from it, losing gravity.

K.'s attitude towards life is exemplified in the position he holds in the bank. His career, his business pursuits, his aims follow the set pattern of professional modern living and also of his whole being. This formality has now been disrupted by the trial. His relations with he Manager and the Assistant Manager are most revealing. The Assistant Manager is also the acting-Manager when K. pursuer his case. He is K.'s competitor in the Bank. There is a hidden rivalry between the two. K. struggles to survive in his official post with his self-preservation instincts. The trial brings to the fore his straggle and weakens him in this rat race. The schism in existence, bringing about his down fall is completely and cruelly exposed. His fall is likened to the fall of man at the metaphorical level. He does not stop himself from bribing the painter or attempting short at routes to escape the condemnation. ‘The Trial’ here is also the consciousness of the empty shell and futility of everybody, selfish individual existence, scraping for any means to survive socially and economically.

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MonkeyNotes-The Trial by Franz Kafka

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