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.