Sunday, February 16, 2014

Raoul's final Kafka post (for reading)

This week’s installment is the final installment of The Trial by Franz Kafka. Honestly, I am happy as hell that we are done with this book. Because I really do not enjoy reading Kafka. I truly do like the theories and the ideas that Kafka brings up, and for the most part I agree with him too. But his stories in my eyes are awful stories. Neither the less, the last installment of The Trial began with the priest’s story of the guard to The Law. I interpreted the law to be heaven, the guard to be gatekeeper for heaven, and the man being a soul stuck in purgatory. The man was stuck in purgatory for all time, and no man could “pass judgment upon him”. He would have to wait for the judgment of some higher power. Ironically, the story shows the religion, failing the man. With the man giving his life in a blind trust to getting into heaven, heaven had failed him by never giving him the admittance, which he sought. Later on in K.’s conversation with the priest, the priest says “it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary”. I believe that this quote goes back to the Dostoyevsky idea of truth. I see that you do not need to accept that two plus two equals four as truth; however, you must accept it as necessary for progress. You see if we cannot use two plus two equals four, than we can not advance as a intelligent life form. We would not be able to create anything. Later on in the story, K. says, “The only thing I can do now.” Which employs there is nothing left for him to do. I believe that it is at this point in which K. accepts death. And just after this he has his existential crises realizing that he does not want to die. That he regrets wanting the case to be over before as soon as it started, but now that it is over he wants it to start again. In the end, (spoiler alert) K. is executed. I truly believe that K. wanted this because “Death gotta be easy, ‘cause life is hard. It’ll leave you physically, mentally, and emotionally scared.” (50 cent)


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