“If I never loved I never would have cried. I am a rock. I am an island” (Simon). K. is that rock. He lives cautiously, seeking order and logic. K. is removed. Removed from his relationships, his work, the entirety of his life. He runs on “…foresight, prudence, and regularity…” (90) as Nietzsche would tell us of the rational man. We see K’s rationality in his quest for an upper hand on the court, his need to keep up appearances at the bank, and in his constant search for logic. K.’s rationality makes him ignorant of the absurd, and that ignorance becomes the cause of his demise. K. tries to make sense of everything he encounters throughout his trial. Any hint he unearths concerning the Court he builds into his understanding of it. He thinks …show more content…
K. studies the altarpiece and sees an armored knight. “He was leaning on his sword…bare except for a stray blade of grass or two. He seemed to be watching attentively some event…It was surprising that he should stand so still without approaching nearer to it” (Kafka 205). This knight stands apart from the melee, sword bare; tangentially connected but fundamentally uninvolved with the possible action of life. The painting gives us a portrait of K., he stands apart, sword bare. (This bare sword only confirms K.’s assurance of his innocence.) The knight is removed, like the rational man, and therefore like …show more content…
is killed by his own rationality. K.’s mental model demands an explanation for the Court, and without accepting the Court’s authenticity that demand cannot be fulfilled. The only power the Court has over K. is the power he gives to it. K. never truly fights the court, instead he wrestles with it in his mind, ultimately inventing a false logic he then has to follow. When the two men come to execute K., he considers resisting, but ultimately “…realize[s] the futility of resistance” (Kafka 225). His contrived logic says that with two stronger men taking him away, resistance must be futile. So he follows that logic and allows the execution—even encourages it: “He set himself in motion…They suffered him now to lead the way…” (Kafka 225). K.’s rational mind walks him to the executioner’s block. As he dies he thinks “‘Like a dog!’” (Kafka 229) and those words demonstrate the ultimate power he’s given to the Court. His own false logic has demanded his death. K.’s demise is a warning. Kafka creates a canvass with K., his lack of a last name allowing us to project our own experiences onto his form: “In The Trial the hero might have been named Schmidt or Franz Kafka. But he is named Joseph K. He is not Kafka and yet he is Kafka. He is an average European. He is like everybody else” (Camus 129). Kafka uses the canvass of Joseph K., rejecting ignorance of the absurd, and perhaps instructing us to reject that ignorance as well. Kafka, like Nietzsche, warns us against living
In George Orwell’s essay, “A Hanging,” and Michael Lake’s article, “Michael Lake Describes What The Executioner Actually Faces,” a hardened truth about capital punishment is exposed through influence drawn from both authors’ firsthand encounters with government- supported execution. After witnessing the execution of Walter James Bolton, Lake describes leaving with a lingering, “sense of loss and corruption that [he has] never quite shed” (Lake. Paragraph 16). Lake’s use of this line as a conclusion to his article solidifies the article’s tone regarding the mental turmoil that capital execution can have on those involved. Likewise, Orwell describes a disturbed state of mind present even in the moments leading up to the execution, where the thought, “oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” crossed his mind (Orwell.
...has failed to help him deal with his inner emotions from his military experience. He has been through a traumatic experience for the past two years, and he does not have anyone genuinely interested in him enough to take the time to find out what's going on in his mind and heart. Kreb's is disconnected from the life he had before the war, and without genuine help and care from these people he lived with, and around all his childhood life, it's difficult to return to the routines that everyone is accustomed to.
Nietzsche: Philosophizing Without Categorizing. How are we to philosophize without "Ism?" For, although defining a person in terms of an Ism is dangerous--both because it encourages identification of the individual with the doctrine and because it denies her the possibility of becoming that, as a human, she is heir to--grouping people according to a doctrine to which they subscribe is a convenient mental shortcut. Although grouping people into verbal boxes entails the danger of eventually seeing all of the boxes as equal, or similar enough to make no difference, the necessity of seeing the totality of a single human being is impossible. And although the qualities of my existence, or anyone else's existence (an individual's isness), are constantly undergoing a process, both conscious and unconscious, of revaluation and change, the change is usually not great enough over short lengths of time to qualify as noticeable.
Enter here The ear splitting crackle from a whip is heard as a master shouts orders to a slave. This to most people would make them comfortable. The idea of slavery is one that is unsettling to most people. This is because most people feel it is unmoral or morally wrong to own another human being. However Nietzsche would not necessarily believe this because he did believe in a morality that fits all. Ethics and morality are completely objective and cannot be one set of rules for everyone. Ethics and morality that are more strictly defined are for the weak, the strong do not need a set of rules because they can take care of themselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science offered us only a glimpse of what Nietzsche has to offer. By bringing his teachings into high school classrooms and becoming a standard high school curriculum can truly benefit and further enrich a young student’s education.
. . I can't execute [him] at all" (Suess 36). This simple statement reveals how a man in an important position of power, the executioner, has ideals that include human rights and justice at the heart of his profession. Although it seems ridiculous for someone with such a grisly job to be so pure of heart, this is actually how it should be. In a strong government, if a job with the purpose of killing wrongdoers must exist, it should not be given to biased people with a nasty streak, instead it should be given to people who understand the clear line between right and wrong, and are not afraid to advocate for it. Furthermore, Suess describes the executioner in a warm light when he says "in spite of his business, he really seemed to be a very pleasant man" (Suess 34). Not only does the executioner have good intentions at heart, but he is someone who the people can look up to in hard times. If he can remain lighthearted with such a dark profession, then what are they to worry about with their simple, everyday problems. Besides running the kingdom, that is the job of the government: keep the people
To fully understand this story, it’s important to have some background information on Franz Kafka. He was born into a German speaking family in Prague on July 3rd, 1883. He was the oldest of six children. His father Harmann Kafka was a business man. His mother Julie Kafka was born into a wealthy family. Kafka considered the vast differences in his paternal and maternal relatives as a “split within himself” (Sokel 1). Kafka felt that “the powerful, self-righteous, and totally unselfconscious personality of his father had stamped him with an ineradicable conviction of his own inferiority and guilt” (Sokel 1). He felt the o...
Bernstein, Richard. “A VOYAGE THROUGH KAFKA'S AMBIGUITIES”. New York Times 02 May 1983. : n. pag. ProQuest Platinum.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due to our illusion of truth. Therefore, Nietzsche concludes that all we can claim to know are interpretations of truth and not truth itself.
While Kierkegaard’s analysis of the superiority of the Knight of Faith in relation to those who follow the aesthetic life or ethical life is correct, he fails to acknowledge that faith can be rooted in joy and love, and can be far more spiritual and fulfilling than faith alone. This is the angst-ridden and unfortunate symptom of an existential despair, and does not truly reflect the complicated relationship between man and God.
Franz Kafka’s descriptive characters and their roles in the court system, the confinement of superstitions and traditions, the cathedral allegory, and Josef K.’s transformation highlights his vulnerability to manmade institutions like the totalitarian government and bureaucracy. This criticism of mankind’s innate and destructive logic places the importance of reality below the absurd and its ability to deceive all individuals.
Kafka tastefully develops every character with a distinctive purpose. The majority of the characters within the context of this novel are maturely developed in an effort by Kafka to enhance K.’s captivating, yet ambiguous story. Brief descriptions and curt introductions of characters are a thing of the past. Kafka expounds upon the personas of his characters by implementing vividly concrete detail in an attempt to amplify their believability. Additionally, he advances his characters individualistic personalities through his excessive use of direct characterization. Ultimately, while Kafka does use direct characterization in his writing, his writing is largely dominated by his use of indirect characterization. In an attempt to produce an ambiguous aura, Kafka leaves much up to the audience in regards to indirect interpretation of the characters.
The main character of The Trial is Joseph K. Yet through out the book he is referred to as simply K.. There is no coincidence that Kafka created the character K. as the protagonist of The Trial. The significance was that Kafka was trying to represent himself through the character by giving a close enough name to his without merely stating his own name in the place of the protagonist of the novel. Kafka did this with another one of his characters, and related them to his life in a significant way through the book. For instance Kafka wrote this book at the time where he was engaged to his fiancé Felice Bauer. Another other character in the book, by the name of Fraulein Burstner, is a neighbor of K.. K. has a love for Fraulein Burstner. In Kafka?s manuscripts, and rough drafts for The Trial he refers to Fraulein Burstner as simply F.B., which happens to be the same initials that his future wife had (Brod 170). K. loses touch with Fraulein Burstner early in the book, and through out the book K. want to see her more than anything. K. receives a glimpse of Fraulein Burstner upon a balcony as he walked down the street before he is stabbed to death. Kafka at the time of writing The Trial was deeply in love with his fiancé, Felice Bauer, and wanted to see her more than anything, when he wrote this book he felt a longing to be with her. Yet, the engagement was broken off shortly afterwards. The use of characters in The Trial par...
All of Friedrich Nietzsche quotes were made before the age of 44. For the last 11 years of his life, he had no use of his mental capabilities. While many of Friedrich Nietzsche quotes were focused on religion, or the fallacy of it, it would be interesting to see what he would have written about later in his life and if his opinion would have changed. Although, the statement 'God is dead' did come from him, so there would likely have been no change in how he viewed religion. Many of his quotes are focused on human behavior and existence, and following are some that moved me.
ii Kafka, F. The Trial. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. Introduction by George Steiner. New York, Schocken Books, 1992, 1.