Maya's Response to Kaylee

        Kaylee, I also feel that K.’s attitude in this portion of the reading is sudden. Right from the get go, he was anything but complacent when he was first arrested. This makes me wonder, is he giving up the fight? 

         I, too, was unsure for a while as to whether I enjoyed the book still or not. Things just become more convoluted by the second and the book becomes harder and harder to follow. I cannot deny that it keeps things interesting, but how long will Kafka keep K. and his reader in this strange purgatory? 

         Now, I kind of feel that it is not so much a dream but another dimension. K. somehow found himself within the confines of it and is now gliding through almost like a ghost. Nothing is concrete and things just kind of happen just because. People in the group have mentioned that maybe Kafka is doing this on purpose. After reading this chapter, I cannot help but agree. I think the storyline has an “unstructured nature” because Kafka meant it to be so. Maybe he wants his readers to be as uncomfortable and as confused as K. is throughout this entire process. I think the only way we will know this for sure, though, is to make it through the book. 

Kaylee's Response to Raoul

             “What the f**k?” is right, honestly I find myself saying this to myself more often than not. I think Kafka totally writes like this on purpose and yes it is super annoying. It is interesting that Kafka adds in this pun of the word “trial” at the end of the chapter, as Raoul points out. It makes me reconsider my thoughts on the title, The Trial itself. I’m not sure I think it is all about the court trial anymore, but more about the various trials/tests he has encountered and will soon encounter in the future. Kafka you little sneak, we're onto you. 

Raoul's Response to Maya

         Maya, I find myself reading The Trial In the same manner. I read a little and ask myself, “what the hell?” and I go back and reread it to try to make sense to it. However, I believe that Franz Kafka wrote this book in this manner in order to confuse us.

I also believe that the entire society is confused by the current court system. I think that the Clerk has too much power, given that they take what ever he says to be true. I also believe that the problem isn’t the court system it is the entire society, but whether is it corruption or undeveloped I do not know.

        I too would not be surprised if it was all a dream I have a feeling that the atmosphere of the court room is a symbol for its corruption. 

Kaylee's 5th Reaction

            As the next chapter comes to a close, Kafka writes of K in the strangest of positions. K. is in the Law Court Offices and is feeling completely sick and out of it. The young woman who approaches him tells him its probably the stuffy air that overfill the offices. She explains that the officials who work inside are used to it, while everyone who visits for the first time is affected by it and experiences an “attack”. I can’t help but think this is connected to how the government is compared to the outside world. At first the woman is very attentive, then she becomes very pushy and wants K. to move out of the way. K. has become so weak, he resembles a toddler. A man walks up and the woman feels the need to introduce him, in addition to defending what a good guy he really is. K is just like can I leave already? K. feels embarrassed because of his sudden weakness, once again revealing his complacent nature. K resembles his situations to one on a boat with feelings of immense seasickness. As K. is finally released, he feels better almost instantly. Interesting enough, the man and women are unable to bear the fresh air in contrast to the air they are used to and can hardly reply as he thanks them.

            At this point in the book, things are getting weirder and weirder. I’m not sure if I really like the book because of its unstructured nature and hard to follow storyline, but I guess it keeps things interesting. 

Raoul's 5th Response

After reading the last installment of The Trial all I have to say is “What the F***”. At first the book made sense and flowed logically; however, it became gradually more and more strange. In the last installment I found myself repeatedly reading a page then saying, “What the hell did I just read” then I would reread it and still be lost. I think that Kafka did this on purpose, but it is annoying.

The conditions within the offices are kind of sickening, literally and figuratively. The filthy, unclean, “hardly breathable” air is not acceptable in a office, especially a government office. I find the need of a position of the Clerk of Inquiries to be explanatory for the society, especially since “a great deal of information is asked for (from him)”. The society should at least have a small understanding of its own legal system; however, it is blatantly obvious that it does not. This makes me wonder if all of this is caused because the society is under-developed or because the society is corrupt.

One of the cool things I found in the last installment of The Trial, was the pun in the title. The trial, which you would think is just a legal trial, is also a trial as in a test. I found it kind of ironic that at the end of chapter three K. was bragging about “withstanding [the trail] with such ease” (pg. 73).

Finally the big question for is still what the hell is K. Being charged with!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve realized we are probable never going to get the answer to that question.

Coolest cover art to the book I've seen...

Maya's Fifth Reaction

        I have found that so far, my responses while reading The Trial are all the same. First, I almost automatically ask myself, “What the hell?” After this, I have to go back and read what I have just read, try to make sense of it, and attempt to tie it into the rest of what has happened at that point. The Trial is very different from most, if not all, of the books I have read. 

       At this point in the story, the reader is informed that it is not just K. who is confused by the court system. The woman introduces K. to the Clerk of Inquiries, the man who apparently knows everything there is to know about the court system. The Clerk is essentially the person who explains what he knows to others. The only reason I can see for there to be someone with this occupation is that the general population of the country the book is set in is also cloudy on exactly how their judiciary system works. This is very concerning; people cannot go on blind about these things. I cannot tell if the court system is corrupt or just extremely under developed. 

        The conditions in the office are extremely bizarre and only further validate the group’s theory that this could very well be a dream. If the book ends with K. waking up in his bed confused, I would not be surprised. How could the air inside an office be so debilitating that it causes health issues for K. and makes one of the other defendants waiting inside scream in pain when K. touches his arm? It sounds much too outlandish for this to actually be occuring in real life. Once K. leaves the office, he is back to his normal state of health. I could understand if the office was cold and other people were not used to the temperature. But, it seems as though the people who work in the office have become accustomed to an entirely different atmosphere. 

Ryan's Response to Natalie

Like Natalie points out, the scene in the court offices continued the bizarreness of The Trial. Like Natalie, I also wondered why K. did not ask the information giver about his trial after the other official told K. the giver knew everything about the law and the courts. That scene furthers Kafka’s style of writing an unpredictable story in which what the reader thinks is going to happen and what actually happens do not usually coincide. I agree with Natalie in that K. is a very proud man and does not want to appear below anyone and does not want to be judged, which is probably why he did not ask any questions about his case. Also, the reason K. did not ask about his case is that he did not want to draw attention to himself, which he was worried about when he entered the offices. Natalie makes a very good point by noting the importance of the stagnant air that seems to be everywhere in the court system. Like Natalie I think the suffocating air represents the judicial system as a whole because the air lurks around and follows people. The air is always around but it goes usually unnoticed until it has an impact on a person. The judicial system was always in place in this society but K. did not realize the fault of the court system until he was arrested and put on trial much like he did not realize the staleness of the air until he was unable to stand.

Natalie's Response to Ryan C.

I thought it was interesting that Ryan stated that he believed Kafka was toying with the reader by using situational irony. I think that this was an interesting point made even though I had never really looked at it that way. Kafka makes it seem like many events may happen but then it usually turns out the opposite way. When the two officials walk up to K. they act the opposite way one would suppose, I would go as far to say that they act “unofficial”. I felt like the man, the Clerk of Inquiries, was just making fun of him at one point and laughing at him. I would think that they would ask questions as to why he’s there but instead they just talk about him as if he were not even present, another point Ryan brings up. I feel like it is not just this section in which Kafka focuses on how K appears to the people surrounding him, like Ryan stated, rather it is in every section. K. is always worried as to how people might view him which is why he always has a very pompous attitude and in this section its no less. When he doesn’t want the usher to walk ahead of him its because he worries about how people may view him since he seems like he just got arrested. Although I do agree with Ryan that it was strange that they have this one man which they refer to as the only well dressed man in the whole court offices.

Ryan's Fifth Reaction

In the next section of The Trial Kafka continues his streak of bizarreness and confusion of both the main character and the reader.  While I read this section, I felt as if Kafka was toying with the reader through situational irony in which what I thought was going to happen did not end up happening. For example, while walking through the office of the court officials K. tries to not attract attention because he does not want to be questioned. However, two officials walk up to K. and as a reader I expected the officials to question K. and for K. to react defensively like he usually does. One of the officials ends up being extremely courteous as K. is suddenly overcome by a sickness and needs some sort of medical attention. Also, the two officials basically make fun of K. and speak about him as if K. were an object right in front of K. I expected K. to become furious and lash out fueled by anger and pride; however, K. simply just sits there and does not say a word. Kafka is trying to confuse the reader and make the reader uncomfortable by making the novel unpredictable. Kafka also focuses a lot on the importance of appearances in this section. For example, while K. is walking through the offices, he does not want the court usher to walk behind K. because it might appear that K. has just been arrested and K. does not want the other people in the office to think that. Also the court system decided that the only person that should be dressed nicely is the “information giver” because he is the face of the court to the public. It makes sense that the face of the court should appear nice, but the court does so very blatantly as everyone else does not dress nicely at all.