The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which brings the story to an end. Because of this there are certain inconsistencies which exist within the novel, such as disparities in timing in addition to other discontinuities in ...
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The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which brings the story to an end. Because of this there are certain inconsistencies which exist within the novel, such as disparities in timing in addition to other discontinuities in narration. After Kafka's death in 1924 his friend and literary executor Max Brod edited the text for publication by Verlag Die Schmiede. The original manuscript is held at the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, Germany. In 1999, the book was listed in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century and as No. 2 of the Best German Novels of the Twentieth Century.
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Joseph K. is an average man. He's actually quite boring - most of his time is spent at the bank where he works, where he dreams of future promotions.
Imagine his surprise, when one morning, he is arrested in his apartment! The men who've come for him don't know what he's done, but no one else does either. He's arrested, but he gets to keep going to work and going about his regular business. Its all very strange.
As he learns more about the strange workings of the courts, he realizes he's in more trouble than he'd thought. Everybody seems to be a part of the court, but nobody knows how the courts work. And certainly, no one knows what he's been arrested for, or how he can help himself. Unfortunately, he's already been assumed as guilty by the court, leaving his attempts quite futile.
