Kaylee's Response to Maya

          Like Maya I agree this chapter was very strange and random. Surprise, surprise! Maya makes a good point in that K. stands up for himself when he is in front of the judicial system, yet plays it safe when dealing with the guards. Although he does offer to help and feels guilty afterward, he doesn’t try that hard to save them. He could have asked to get into contact with the “whip man” / flogger’s supervisor. I also pointed out in my reaction that this chapter seemed similar to The Penal Colony in its tone and setting. The government definitely has a lot of problems because it is so unstable, yet they seem to be stuck in their beliefs, like Maya says. I like how Maya describes the following day as a “second” chance because that is exactly what it is. K. gets the opportunity to save the guards once again. He could have prevented Franz from screaming, which initially drove him out of the room the day before, and worked harder to convince the whip man to let them go.  But K. fails the test and tells his assistants to clean out the room. Then he leaves “with his mind a blank”, therefore feeling no pain or sense of guilt.  Strange how the day before it bothered him so much, then the next day he couldn’t care less and didn’t want to deal with the men at all. Did he think it was only his mind playing a trick on him?  

Raoul's Response to Ryan

Ryan (C.) I respectfully disagree with you; I believe that chapter five is rather important in The Trial. Maybe the chapter does little to advance the plot on the novel; however, Kafka does not write his novels for plot. I think the reason that K. wants to help the wardens is not because he sympathizes with them but because he wants to relieve himself of the guilt of knowing that he caused them to suffer. I like the parallel that you drew between K.’s situation and the warden’s situation. I did not see that correlation, but it makes sense. I agree that when the warden’s were being whipped it was interesting to see what they did to K. from their perspective.

         I was definitely not proud of K. for trying to help the wardens. I believe that he should have walked away and not bothered with the wardens. I think we all have a concern for appearance like K. and Kafka was trying to show us that concern through K..

I too found it weird that the wardens were being punished in a random closet in the building K. works at. However, this is a Kafka story, so weird is normal. I too hope that something interesting happens in this story because it is beginning to get extremely painful to read.

Raoul’s Reaction to Chapter 5

Chapter five of The Trial was actually kind of interesting, for me (no, I am not going to say I liked it because I did not enjoy reading it). I liked the psychological and sociological issues that Kafka wrote about in chapter five. During chapter five, the wardens are pleading for K. to save them, and even though he does not like them, K. offered to take the whipping for the wardens. I find this kind of interesting to see how much pain guilt could cause. The pain of being whipped was less than the pain of guilt for K.. 

Another issue that Kafka involved into chapter five was the power of a complaint. We never really realize it but a complain has a lot of power. For example, if someone wrote a complaint to the colleges I was applying to about me. In that complaint they say I stole a pensile from their book bag and say I prank called them. It is likely that the schools would change their decision about me because of that complaint. So eventually that complaint prevented me from going to college, which would change my life forever. Kafka was writing about the individual’s (K.’s) power in forcing the state to deal with the complaint. However, K. never realized how powerful his complaint truly was and in the end he regretted ever complaining to the state.

Even though I found chapter five to be interesting, there are something’s from chapter five that don’t make sense. For example, why were the wardens being punished in K.’s office? Or, why were the wardens and the whipper still in the room the next day? This again is leading me to believe that K. is living in some dream like world.

            I am honestly beginning to think that the copy of The Trial that I have might have been translated through Google translator and printed (never checked for grammar) because there are some serious grammar mistakes. It would be nice to read Kafka in germen.

            

Maya's Response to Natalie

         I think Natalie’s description of the entire situation as “random” is much better than calling it strange. I agree with Natalie because she is correct in saying that much stranger things have happened in the book than this. I also think that the government keeps getting caught doing some questionable things in the dark. What K. saw was literally going on behind a closed door. K. is kind of like Kafka in the film we watched in class because he sees something that is suspicious and should be brought to the attention of the public, but he chooses to not do anything. Whether K. will eventually elect to do something like Kafka did in the movie is unknown to the reader at this point. 

         I would not be surprised if there were more things of this nature currently under way in K.’s country. It is possible that the government is so convoluted because if it were to inform the people it is supposedly serving about every last detail, these same people would become more educated and would, in turn, be able to see all the holes and wrongdoings of their government. When and if the people are able to see the flaws of their government, they will begin to constantly question it. If the government is being scrutinized like this, it will not be able to carry out processes like the one including the whip man in secret anymore. All this questioning could also lead to the people breaking away and everyone knows that a government with no one under it is hardly a government at all. 

Natalie's response to Ryan C

Unlike Ryan I did not feel like this chapter was superfluous instead I think it gives the reader more insight into the government and K. I agree with Ryan that one of the most important parts of this chapter is K.'s sympathy towards the policemen. This reaction is very different from the K. we see in the majority of the novel and it reveals a different side to him. I think Ryan's correlation between K and the policemen is very interesting and I agree with him. K and the policemen are similar because they show the injustices in the government and the way they carry out their processes. K was perceived and guilty from the moment he is arrested, similarly the policemen are guilty from the moment K makes his statement. In both cases there does not seem like there is anything they can do to escape their inevitable fate. Similar to Ryan I questioned why the policemen were being punished in a closet in a bank, but the events that transpire in this novel are so random that I quickly dismissed it.

Maya's Reaction to Chapter 5

           I am struggling to find what to write about this next chapter. I feel that if I write something negative, it will sound redundant since my recent reactions have been written in this manner. If i write something positive, it will not sound genuine. I think that for now, I am going to put my attempts to understand Kafka’s purpose to rest because they have not helped me so far. I probably have to get farther into the book for these attempts to actually be successful and not sound like I am jumping to conclusions. After I read this chapter, I did not have that strong of a reaction. I finished reading and kind of thought, “Well, that just happened”. 

           In this next section of reading, K. stumbles upon a “junk room”. He hears noises coming from inside and decides to go in thinking he will help whatever poor thing is obviously stuck in there. K. unexpectedly finds the two police officers who came into is home the day he was arrested. A figure dressed in leather looms over them with his club, ready to beat them because K. supposedly files a complaint. When K. asks the “whip man” to let the officers free, he refuses. I thought that this would be K.’s moment and he would help the two officers even though they were the ones who arrested him. Even if Franz and Willem’s excuses to avoid being beaten may have been untrue, K. did say that he never filed a complaint, making the whip man’s punishment unjust. However, K decides to simply walk away. I found it kind of strange that K. could stand up for himself and defy the judicial system when he was being tried for the first time but chose to play it safe when it came to Willem and Franz’s situation. The whole concept and presence of the whip man is very medieval. This leads me to believe that The Trial is taking place in a setting much like The Penal Colony, somewhere that is stuck in its beliefs and has been unwilling to change. 

           The strangest part of this chapter, though, is when K.’s entire experience is rewound. He is given a second chance, almost like in a video game. This time, K does not even bother going in and finding the two policemen. He simply calls for someone to clean out the junk room. Again, I thought that since K. was able to stand up for himself in court, he would be able to stand up for the two men who were wrongly being punished, supposedly because of him. I feel that K. is making a transition into being either more complacent or more cowardly. 

Natalie's Reaction

Chapter 5 of The Trial once again had a “dream-like” quality. From the beginning K. discovers a door, which for some reason he had never noticed before. This occurs frequently in dreams, random things and people pop up out of nowhere and they are considered normal. It was also especially strange that when K. opened the door his two arresting officers were in there with a “whip-man”. From all the random events that have occurred in this novel this was not that strange, I think random would be a better word. This reminds me back to when the policemen first arrested K. I found it strange that they had turned his neighbors house into an office room and why did they not just take him to whatever government building they work at. This was similar to what occurred in this chapter. The policemen are being punished and whipped in a random closet of a bank. If this were something to actually happen I would believe that it would probably occur in some sort of government office, yet again it happens there. Similarly the government seems to be described as “shady”. First the legal offices are located in an attic of a rundown building and next they are carrying out punishments in a dark closet. The government is more and more being associated with suspicious activity, they carry out many of their processes in the dark, which gives off the feeling like they are hiding stuff from the people. In this chapter we also learn more about the government and the way they carry out their legal processes through the policemen being punished. We hear them complain about the corruptness of the government and the poor pay they receive. I am not entirely sure if it was due to the situation they are in that caused them to speak so poorly of the government or if this is an ever-present feeling. Regardless, it seems like they can get away with a lot as long as they are not caught. This does not seem right, but I guess it is a reality in all governments. I also found it strange that K.’s statements would so heavily influence the courts actions and cause them to punish their own men. At the end of the chapter one can clearly see that K. is affected by the events that transpired that day, he feels guilty about their punishments and it is one of the first times I actually liked K. because rather than being his usual arrogant self he is actually caring about other people.

Ryan's Response to Kaylee

I agree with Kaylee that this chapter highlights the unpredictability of the government and K.’s mental situation. I also find it quite strange and suspicious that the government seems to carry out their business in any location. For example, K.’s first hearing took place in the top floor of a random apartment building and in this chapter; the police force chooses to punish two officers in a random closet in a bank. I think the government is either just too disorganized or they want to establish their presence in literally all parts of society, similar to “Big Brother is watching you.” Kaylee makes an interesting point that I did not think of. The officers are being punished because K. complained about the manner in which he was arrested, like Kaylee I cannot think of another society that values the thoughts and opinions of a person being arrested. I think Kafka is criticizing society because the society in the novel cares about the opinions of all members of society, which sounds like a normal standard, however, no society does care about convicted citizens. I also think that K. feels very guilty about not helping the officers as he is trying to justify not helping the officers by saying there was nothing else he could have done. I also think K. might be hallucinating when he sees the same people in the same closet the following day, however, this government is bizarre enough to punish government employees for a day straight.

Ryan's Seventh Reaction

      The next chapter of The Trial, like the previous chapter, seems rather superfluous. The chapter does little to advance the plot on the novel. I think the most important part of the chapter is that K. sympathizes for the two police officers and even defends them. There are many parallels between K.’s situation and the police officers’ situation. Both are victims of the system. K. is arrested for no apparent reason, and the police officers are required to be beaten because a complaint was filed. Even though K. is the reason they are being whipped, I think there are more reasons to why K. tries to save the two men. K. realizes that the men are punished for something out of their control, just like K. was arrested for something out of his control. Kafka also shows that there are two sides to every story through the officers. K. complained about the officers because he deemed their actions rude as they ate his breakfast and stole clothes, which K. interpreted as an abuse of power. However, K. learns that the officers are paid poorly and cannot afford new clothes.

 I was rather proud of K. for putting forth a significant amount of effort to help the officers, going so far as preparing to bribe the whip man. However, I was ultimaltey disappointed as K. gives up his heroic effort rather quickly. Similar to other times in the novel, K.’s concern for appearance harms his character. K. stops helping the officers when one of them yells out of pain. K. is concerned that other people will associate K. with the screaming, which agitates K. and tries to leave the scene as quickly as possible. I thought it was strange that the officers were being punished in a random closet in the building K. works at. K. works at a bank, why would police officers be punished there? Furthermore, I think the episode with the police officers being whipped affected K. psychologically, as K. feels guilty for not helping the officers, going so far as to demanding that the closet be cleaned out. The novel has steered away from K.’s trial, for unknown reasons, maybe to downplay the gravity of K.’s legal situation. I hope Kafka continues to unfold K.’s trial because the novel is becoming rather boring.