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.