The Law in Kafka's Trial
The Law in Kafka's novel The Trial houses a fundamental but fleeting metaphysical metaphor. It is virtually unassailable, hidden, and always just beyond the grasp of human understanding. The Law seeks to impose an unknowable order and assimilate any individual notion of existence. It defines two distinct modes of existence through accusation: those who stand accused by the Law and those who are empowered by the Law to pass judgement upon those accused. From the very moment of his arrest, Joseph K. resists this legal hierarchy stating, "I don't know this Law ... it probably exists nowhere but in your head... it is only a trial if I recognize it as such" (6, 40). Freedom is at the center of this conflict. In attempting to rigidly define human existence, the Law compels humankind to be passive, to accept the incomprehensible legal machinery of the Court without question. "The only pointless thing is to try taking independent action" (175). There is a tacit assumption that freedom, whether one is accused or not, is provisional at best. Kafka uses the priest's allegory of the doorkeeper and the common man to powerfully illustrate this point. In many ways, the novel itself can be seen as an elaboration, commentary, or critique on the allegorical power of the Law.
Humanity's ignorance of the Law is a given in both the allegory and the novel as a whole. K. and the man from the country exist outside the confines of the Law. They both seek knowledge; they want to be allowed past the threshold. This ignorance, however, does not provide protection from the powers of the Law. Ignorance does not prevent one from being accused, enslaved, or destroyed. "Anything but stop halfway, that was the most senseless ...
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... the concept of the Court. "Everything belongs to the Court" (151). The Law provides a sense of unknowable mysterious order to an otherwise chaotic universe, fueling the ever-expanding interlocking machinery of the Court. The common man in the allegory chooses to remain at the threshold of the Law. K. exercises some degree of free will by dismissing his lawyer, attempting "to alter the disposition of things around him" (121). In each case, however, an act of freedom is met with a "compensating reaction" from within the bowels of the Court's machine. Each man is ultimately forced to meet death passively within the power of those appointed by the Law. To the end, in the allegory and the novel as a whole, the Law remains flexible enough to contain and curtail any individual act of freedom.
Works Cited
Kafka, Franz. The Trial. New York: Schocken Books, 1984.
...are confronted with the question of moral absolutes, we are forced to wonder when and to whom justice truly applies. Hopefully, we will look at our world and our ideas of right, wrong and retribution in different ways, ways that will enlighten and enrich our lives, and the those of the an audience of readers 2,000 years from now.
Johnson, Claudia. "The Secret Courts of Men's Hearts: Code and Law in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird." Studies in American Fiction (1991):129-139.
Justice is generally thought to be part of one system; equally affecting all involved. We define justice as being fair or reasonable. The complications fall into the mix when an act of heroism occurs or morals are written or when fear becomes to great a force. These complications lead to the division of justice onto levels. In Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Plato’s Republic and Apology, both Plato and Aeschylus examine the views of justice and the morality of the justice system on two levels: in the city-state and the individual. However, Plato examines the justice system from the perfect society and Aeschylus starts at the curse on the House of Atreus and the blood spilled within the family of Agamemnon.
Law has no existence for itself; rather its essence lies, from a certain perspective, in the very life of men.
154, 956). This indicates two main points. Firstly, it speaks to the dangers of a conventional wisdom that is unwise in so far as it lacks the ability to sort out its own contradictions and to truly consider how the relationship between conventional laws and justice is a very complex relationship that needs to be articulated and sorted out for all its contradictions. Secondly, it points to the emergence of a discourse of hazardous individualism that emerges largely as a direct consequence of a collectivized political virtue that emphasizes the importance of restrain and justice, yet is unable to show the benefits the individual may incur from such virtues. Perhaps, this second point is made better evident towards the latter end of the interchange between the speeches. Consider, for example, how the unjust speech is able to promise those who follow its teachings positive and immediate pleasures, namely “boys, women, wine, relishes…” (p. 156, line 1001). Now consider how the just speech, speaking two lines before, simply celebrates the “ancient education” for the ways in which it “pitches [the singing of the sons] to the harmony of the fathers” and for “beating and trashing” those who seek to make any “modulations” (p. 154, lines 967-970). Finally, all the just speech is able to promise those
Have you ever ask yourself how much being unjust impacts your everyday life and decisions, and how your life would change when you are just? Plato wrote in this book’s expect about how Glaucon perceives the basic idea of justice and how we humans perceive justice as. People created own laws and are deciding whether or no to follow them. One of Glaucon’s argument is that we follow justice to get things or because of its consequences. He also argues that we should preserve justice as a way to gain things not to value it for its own sake. The first of Glaucon’s two claims is the descriptive claim which talks about and explains that humans instrumentally value justice instead of intrinsically valuing it.
This theory looks at how the sovereign and its officials created the law based on social norms and the institutions (Hart, 1958). However, hard cases such as this makes for bad law, which test the validity of the law at hand based on what the objective of the law was in the first place. The law should not be so easily dismissed just because it does not achieve justice in the most morally sound manner (Hart, 1958). Bentham and Austin understood that there are two errors in the way law is understood, what the law is and what the law should be (Hart, 1958). He knew that if law was to become what humans perceived the law ought to be, the law itself would be lost, but he also recognized that if the opposite was to occur where the law replaced morality, than any man would escape liability and there would be no retribution (Hart, 1958). This theory looks at the point of view of the dissenting judge, Justice Gray, which is that the law is what it is, even if it may conflict with morals. Austin stated that “The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry (Hart, 1958).” This case presents the same conflict that Bentham and Austin addressed, that the law based on the statute of the
Throughout Gendered Worlds sociologists argue that gender and sex are socially constructed as opposed to being innate. The authors present evidence in regards to history, biology, and contemporary viewpoints using day-to-day examples. Although alternative viewpoints may argue that through biological perspectives, gender and sex are innate characteristics through deeper examination it can be determined that gender and sex are truly socially constructed.
Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is often referred to as a parable. Thus, it is logical to approach Kafka’s work as an allegory and search for the deeper meaning underneath the story. We can then try to uncover the identity of the characters; of the gatekeeper, the man from the country, and the Law and subsequently relating them to something that fits the example of the plot; a man’s confused search for god, a man’s quest for happiness but never accomplishing it, a academic’s quest for recognition which never comes. Any given number of innovative readers...
Gender differences are best understood as a process of socialization, to organize the roles each individual have to fulfil in society. From parents to teachers, religions, media, and peers; we observe and make sense of the behaviors exhibited by the people around us since young. We imitate and construct our own understanding of how to be of a particular gender, and of how to position ourselves. Parents socialize their children based on their biological sex, and this process starts as soon as the sex of the baby is known. Gender is hence socially constructed.
It has long been debated whether there is a difference between sex and gender, and if so, what that difference is. In recent years it has been suggested that sex is a purely biological term, and gender is socially constructed, or defined and enforced by society. Sex is assigned at birth based on the genitalia, and usually, gender is determined by the sex. If parents are told their baby is a girl, they will reinforce traditional female stereotypes for her whole life. Society and peers will also help to reinforce her gender as she begins to spend more time outside of her immediate family. In this way, gender is a process, whereas sex is simply a static characteristic based on one’s physical appearance. The more dynamic process of gendering, however, defines “man” and “woman,” teaches one to see and internalize what is expected from one’s gender, and to act according to those expectations (Lorber 2006).
In both Antigone and The Republic, elements of death, tyranny, morality, and societal roles are incorporated into each work’s definition of justice. Both works address the notions of justice in a societal form, and an individual form. However, these definitions of justice differ with some elements, they are closely tied with others.
The Trial is Kafka’s exploration of the most extreme consequences of denying one’s own guilt and thus one’s own humanity. In some senses, it serves as a warning, or a sort of parable of its own, and in others it is simply an expression of anguish. The story serves to warn against thinking so highly of oneself that we only interpret infractions of the outright law as guilt. If we are to be truly innocent and humble beings, we must recognize our own innate guilt as human and accept it. If we do not, we will constantly be obsessed by our “state of apparent acquittals."
Neumann, Gerhard. "The Judgement, Letter to His Father, and the Bourgeois Family." Trans. Stanley Corngold. Reading Kafka. Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken, 1989. 215-28.
A topic that has been widely debated about and heavily studied throughout history is that of what makes up an individual’s gender identity and how does it develop. Gender identity can be described as a person's private sense of their own gender, which refers to whether or not an individual has a sense of acceptance of the male or female gender, or in some cases a third non-sexual gender, in which an individual is not comfortable with being defined as a particular sex. In most societies, there exists a gender norm in which the ideals of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of gender and sex (gender identity, gender expression and biological sex) and taught and learned. When looking at the history of gender development, one must understand the idea of gender, learn gender role standards and stereotypes, identify with the individual's parents, and learn how one forms a gender preference.