Franz Kafka Trial Essay

During Europe’s period of economic advancement, industrialization, and militia power Franz Kafka crafted a novel that perfectly exemplified what was to become of the country in the following years. Written by Kafka in 1914, The Trial contained numerous totalitarian representations, mocking the form of government in which the citizens are bound to the absolute rule of an autocratic authority. The book was not published and exposed to the world until the initial introduction of despotism in the late 1920s. Kafka did not plan to and was not intentionally mocking the totalitarian state of Eastern Europe, but it is vividly shown through the setting in an impoverished city that is forced to live with conformity, the unexpected arrest of the protagonist,

The party was led my Adolf Hitler and soon became known as the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party was the most terrifying totalitarian regime that ruled over Germany until the end of World War II. “By 1928, the Nazi Party now had 100,000 members and Hitler had absolute control.” As Germany’s economy began to fall in the 1930s, Hitler won the citizens over with strong economic and military plans. “Hitler moved quickly to establish a dictatorship. He used terror to gain power while maintaining an air of legality throughout.” He abolished freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in Germany so he could control every facet of the individual Germans lives. The totalitarian government structure spread throughout most of Central and Eastern Europe, leaving Czechoslovakia the only liberal country by 1938. Joseph Stalin was also a prominent autocratic leader at the time. “Stalin's aim was to create a new kind of society and a new human personality to inhabit that society: socialist man and socialist woman.” Strong political forces were established in both regimes to enforce the beliefs of the ruler. Exile and execution were a commonplace for those who went against the ‘popular’ conviction ("Lecture 10: The Age of Totalitarianism: Stalin and

was completely unexpected. Kafka does not specify a reason for why K. was on trial at all throughout the novel. Upon his first arrest he could only think that he “lived in a country with a legal constitution, there was universal peace, all the laws were in force” but Kafka teaches the audience throughout the novel about laws that are unknown to typical civilians (Kafka 4). The readers are introduced to the court belief that one must be punished for not following through with its orders and going against its beliefs. This became prevalent to the readers when Kafka revealed to K. that the workers who he complained about to the court were found being punished; “We’re to be flogged because you complained about us to the Examining Magistrate” (Kafka 84). In addition, throughout the novel there were no instances that could have possibly led to K.’s execution. The only logical reasoning that the audience could pick out is Joseph K.’s refusal to follow the court’s secret and unspoken rules. For example, when he was summoned to execution on his thirty first birthday (a year after his first arrest) but refused to kill himself, he left it to the court officials to execute him in a terrible way. “Radicals were either imprisoned or exiled because of their liberal, democratic, socialist, communist or anarchist inclinations” in totalitarian regimes, this is closely connected to what the court system did to K. for being defiant ("Lecture 10: The