Dear all,next week Dr. Marc Harreman will introduce you to Kafka's world. After that, there will be a short pause (Easter Holidays...): you will have some time to think about all the lectures and the readings before starting again on Wednesday 15th April.
Program “Law & Franz Kafka”:
Lecture 1 (Wednesday, 1 April 2009, 13.45h - 15.45h) ‘Franz Kafka is Law-and-literature’ - Introduction to Franz Kafka, his life and his work.
Lecture 2 (Thursday, 2 April 2009, 10.00h - 11.45h) ‘The Trial (Der Prozess)’ - Kafka’s most famous novel.
Lecture 3 (Friday, 3 April 2009, 10.00h - 11.45h) ‘Franz Kafka in Law-and-literature’ - Franz Kafka in judicial opinions and scientific discussions (Robin Posner vs. Richard Posner).
Readings:
Martha S. Robinson, The Law of the State in Kafka’s Trial, in “ALSA F.” 6(1982), p. 127-148.
Robin West, Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The Role of Consent in the Moral and Political Visions of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner, in “Harvard Law Review”, 99 (1985), p. 384-428.
Richard A. Posner, The Ethical Significance of Free Choice: A Reply to Professor West, in “Harvard Law Review”, 99 (1986), p. 1431-1448.
Two parables of Franz Kafka:
- The problem of our laws (‘Zur Frage der Gesetze’)
- The gate-keeper (excerpt from “The Trial”)
Curriculum Dr. M.M.L. Harreman:
Marc Harreman is an expert in the field of Dutch and European civil and procedural law and has published several articles in these fields. Mr. Harreman was born in Geleen in 1970 (The Netherlands). He completed his law degree in 1994 at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. During his law study, Mr. Harreman studied at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in Germany under the Erasmus scholarship program. Mr. Harreman taught, as a guest professor, arbitration law at the University of Letland in Riga and worked for different law firms in Austria and in The Netherlands, including Reif-Breitwieser in Vienna and Russell in Amsterdam. From 2000 to 2008 Mr. Harreman was a Lecturer of Civil Law at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and holds a Ph.D. awarded by this University. He wrote his dissertation on: “Seizures for security in order to obtain consignment of goods", English translation of the Dutch title: "A study regarding the application of art. 730 of the Code of Civil Proceeding, also from a historical point of view”, published by Boom Juridische Uitgevers, The Hague, 2007.
37 commenti:
hi!
Kafka,Kafka...It's a long time since I read one of his book...In high school I also read a small part of "the metamorphosis" in german, ( you know, it's one of the hardest reading I've ever had, that insect was a nightmare ).
Kafka is absolutely a son of his time: he lived in a difficult period and in a family that didn't like him, ( see what happen in "the metamorphosis" ). I think that his hard life passed in his writing: pessimist, unsatisfied and misunderstood all the characters reflect his feeling and, somehow, a part of his life. They are a little autobiographical, ( in "the metamorphosis" we have a commercial traveller like Kafka himself, and in "the trial" the main chracter is maned K., like the author's surname).
The particularity of Kafka's characters is that they always fall into decay: from the beginning they start to go down and, in the end, they find the worst way to leave the scene.
Maybe Kafka didn't/couldn't remember that the hope is at the end of the pot.
bye
V.Russotto
Hi guys,
I think it should be interesting a parallelism between the kafka's problem of law and the Manzoni's Dott Azzeccagarbugli.
I think in both passages we can find a metaphore about how law is used as a way to be protected by the upper class.
Dott. Azzeccagarbugli makes his own business with law through a technical way of using language; on the other hand in the problem of law kafka says how law is made only by and for nobles convenience. Maybe nothing has been changed.... Could they be linked to "La Casta" (Stella, Rizzo)....
Andrea Petroni
Hi!
I agree with valentina about the nightmare idea! This is the sensation I felt when I watched "the Trial"..
Kafka is able to make understand the sense of dismay and anguish that people felt when don't know the limit and the area of the law. I think the most important result of legacy principle is to make the law predictable because if citizens know law they can prevert the arbitrariness of the government power. Quoting Giannini: "The main point is that the choice is controllable and arguable"
My idea of law is synonymous of guardianship not only punishment because "innocent don't exist. Different degrees of responsibility exist only".
Antonio Rosetta
Hi all,
I think that is very interesting how a genius like Franz Kafka can explain in a very sensitive and deep way problems that are very current nowadays too!
In the parable “the problem of our laws” he wrote: when everything will have become clear, the law will belong to the people, and the nobility will vanish.
Well, also today everything is not as clear as it should be. Of course now there are not the same matters anymore, the nobility is not the same, it changed as well as changed the society but not for this reason we can ignore the issue.
But the question is: who are the nobles now?
1)Are they the politic class?
I think that in Italy of course they are (just think about justice problems that some of them have!!), they need to control laws, because so they can control everything that is influenced by law, and law concerns life into society, the same society they want to control!
2) Are they the judges?
I think that judges give their contribution so that everything won’t become clear, but this represents a minor problem in Italy. But it is different in the U.S.A. I guess, where some time ago they used to speak about “judges government”!
3)Are they some mysterious people that control everything from a secret place – are we in a big brother system( using George Orwell’s words)?!? This is the less probable version but maybe not so far from us!
Now I leave to you the reflection about who are the modern nobles!
Bye bye…
Contartese Antonio
Dear all
I agree with Antonio and I had the same impression when I read “The trial“, it reminds me the Manzoni’s dott. Azzeccagarbugli, specially thinking about the reaction of Renzo when he can’t understand the words of dott. Azzeccagarbugli.
I was thinking about the latin principle “ignorantia legis non excusat”: even when the law is dark and confused the law asks to everybody to be know but the law doesn’t give to everybody the real possibility to be known and to be understood.
It’s true that almost all the Kafka’s character fall into decay and we can find this kind of characters also in other books and the first that I mean is Ulrich in “The man without qualities” of Robert Musil, just reading the title of the book we can have an idea of the main character: a man like everyone, with nothing special, nor in good way and neither in a bad way! I think that we have always to think about the period in which Kafka lived to well understand his caracthers, just as Dr. Harreman said this morning. Always in “The man without qualities” and better in “a sort of introduction”, according to me, we can find a great description of that period when Musil writes about Kakanian telling that: “By its constitution it was liberal, but the system of government was clerical. The system of government was clerical, but the general attitude to life was liberal. Before the law all citizens were equal, but not everyone, of course, was a citizen.”
Bye
Maria Buonanno
Hi!
“The Law is whatever the nobles do”...this is the sentences that impress me in the Kafka’s text.
The nobles makes a law, and they are not only guardians, but they take all decision alone. People are recipient of the conclusion that nobles adopt. This is the situation when Kafka wrote.
Unfortunately, sometimes I think that there’s not total change. And it’s not rhetoric. I read “la casta” and “la deriva” both write by Stella &Rizzo, and I forgot the same assertion; now we don’t speak about nobles but about politicians and managers. The problems are the same...there is a sensation that laws are created for take care of one business in which politicians profit by “their” laws...recently I listen speak about law “ad personam”, often. The idea that the law is general and abstract isn’t utopia. Not of unusual if I think to absolutism or monarchy; but we have a Constitution that stand surety for our right, today. This is our instrument for change grim reality.
Kafka top of a paradox: “The sole visible and indubitable law that is imposed upon us is the nobility and must we ourselves deprive ourselves of that one law?” He looked in the nobles the Pharmakon: the problem and the solution in the same element. He was unhopeful or it’s only a provocation?
Pointedly, I’m not agree in the first example...
Daniela D’Annibale
Good evening guys!
I don't know if you agree with me, but I really appreciated Marc Harreman's First Lecture 'cause he enligthened us of some historical and familiar aspects of Kafka's life.
We didn't talk about "The trial" yet, but I would like to spend few words on the importance of the art of writing, also in the legal context. Infact, this afternoon we observed how would be interesting (and also funny!)to discover how to write and explain legal contents in a creative way! I think the problem is that we are not often required to make written works aimed at developing our critical opinions,during the years we spent in our Universities.
For this reason (to answer Antonio's question in the blog) I think that the modern nobles are those ones who try to convince us that we don't need to think, to reflect and to know because there is someone else who keeps the power of knowledge; it could be true but it can't prevent us from doing our best!!
See you tomorrow!
Alessandra Simeoni
hi!
I find very interesting the way Kafka talks about laws..
He uses strong metaphores like nobles referring to the law doctors and lawyers, judges and all the person that are parties of a inaccessible legal system.
I also think that the world of law is really complicated and obscure, generally,in the systems of civil law and expecially in Germany.
We can realize it also comparing BGB with other european codes.
The BGB is according to me one of the most complicated. Since It was proclaimed in the 1900, it appeared very difficult to approach because the language was too specific, the santences too long and the words hard to understand.
The language appeared directed to law doctors and inaccessible to the common people.
I think that in such a system is even more difficult for the people to approach to the law and as Kafka writes in 'the problem of our laws',the people can feel " worthy of being entrusted with the law" that seems to belong only to the 'nobility'.
Hello,
the theme of this week is Kafka and yesterday the Dr. Marc Harreman has introduced this great and particular fiction writer of the 20th century.
He said that Kafka was born into a middle class Jewish family in Prague on July 3, 1883 and died in 1924 for tuberculosis.
His father, a merchant, was a domineering figure whose influence pervaded his son's work and stifled his life.
After an education in a tipically draconian gymnasium for the time, Kafka entered law school and received a doctorate degree. While a law student, he associated with many members of Prague's burgeoning scene of young, German- speaking writers. One such companion, Max Brod, became a lifelong devoted friend and was ultimately responsible for preserving much of what exists of Kafka's writing.
Kafka, a Czech who wrote in German, may have had in mind the city of his birth, Prague. (Until 1918, Prague was part of Austria-Hungary, also called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Late that year, Austria-Hungary dissolved as part of the outcome of the First World War. Austria and Hungary became republics, as did Czechoslovakia–with Prague as its capital. The nation was made up of Czechs, Slovaks, and minority groups that included Germans, Ukrainians, and Hungarians. Czechoslovakia fell under Nazi domination between 1939 and 1945, then under Soviet communist domination until 1989, when Soviet communism collapsed. In 1993 Czechoslovakia was divided into two republics, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Prague is the capital of the former.)
The themes of Kafka,s work are the loneliness, frustration and oppressive guilt of an individual threatened by anonymous forces beyond his comprehension or control.
Today, in fact, the adjective "kafkaesque" has entered the language to express the absurd, surreal and terrifying world that Kafka's work created.
D'Antona V.
Good morning!
I’m start to read “the trial”….it’s not a relaxing reading!
Joseph K. is the protagonist of this trial, but he doesn’t know the reason of this situation. He doesn’t know the charge. And this is the first element that stresses the peculiarity of the argument.
In our legal system, we say that lack respect of the legal principles. In fact in our system, the defendant must know, before the trail is beginning, which is his charge. The Constitution say that “the defense is an inviolable right”(art.24).But for Kafka it’s unimportant, apparently. He constructs the story around this absence: in the first chapter K.’s tenant, Mrs. Grubach, reassures him about his arrest: “in the life occur all situations”. I think than Kafka points out the power that tread on people, who can’t respond to the bureaucratic system. In fact K. goes on with his life, normally. The arrest is only formal decision.
The second element that I recognize is places in which the story is sets. Buildings are unclear and not formal. Kafka describes its like a normal house, like a labyrinth. K. is ashamed because he searches the phantom court, and he lies when someone ask his what he’s looking for. The justice is hidden. Not only because there isn’t a really tribunal, but also because the administration is retiring for few people. This is the same concept that Kafka confirm in “the problem of our law”.
See you tomorrow!
Daniela D’annibale
« Qualcuno doveva aver calunniato Josef K., perché senza che avesse fatto niente di male, una mattina fu arrestato. »
The famous incipit as the rest of the romance, in my opinon, works as a powerful condamnation about what is happening in Prague, and in the Austro-Hungarian kingdom as well, during Kafka's life.
The German title, Der Prozess, connotes both a "trial" and a "process," and it is perhaps this maddening feeling of inevitability that leaves a pretty bad impression (especially because there's no trial at all as a student said today): the machinery of "law" has been set in motion, and the process will grind toward conclusion despite our exhortations.
Everything could be confirmed by the parable of the gatekeeper that explain us how powerful is the legal system.
In fact the lawyer suggested to Joseph is not a good lawyer but is a lawyer with a lot of contacts with the Law (shouldn't be better have a lawyer with good skills in law and not in contact with the law?).
Another point to be analysed in my opinion should be the one about a kind of Law's personification (law as something higher). In my opinion this kind of approach to The Law underline the distance between common people and the bureaucratis system.
See u tomorrow
Andrea Petroni
Hello,
today at lesson we talk about "The Trial".
In this book Kafka describe the frustration, anxiety and loneliness of a man in an age of a big governament.
"Der Prozess", the German title of the novel, suggest that justice in Kafka's fictional world is a continuing process. In Joseph K.' case, the process does not end until K. dies.
Franz Kafka open "The Trial" with this sentence: "Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning".
In this passage although Joseph K. belives the legal system to be fair, predicable and rational, his encounters with that system show the system to be arbitrary and impenetrable.
Emblematic and dramatic, according to me, is the last phrase pronounced by Josef K., before he died: "Like a dog! It was as if the shame of it should oulive him".
Is a book extremely topical that make to reflect. In particular way the epilogue is cruel and terrible and take to a discomfort of civilization in front of the justice unfortunately often unjust and absurd.
D'Antona V.
Hi everybody!
Today we talked about "The trial", Kafka's masterpiece (together with "The metamorphosis")and I just wanted to point out some impressions I had, both while I was reading it and of our discussion.
Actually I tried twice to read this book uring my youth, but I never succeded in ending it before now, because I was oppressed by his writing-style.
I must admit that this reading was quite interesting this time, also because I tried to read it in a different perspective, underlining passages linked with law, particularly with the criminal procedure.
Actually I think that nowadays it could be very strange to be arrested, examinated and so on without being informed about the crime, but if you consider criminal procedure from an historical point of view, the result will change.
Indeed during Inquisition it was normal to be arrested and examinated even if none explained anything about the fault(you couldn't neither know who accused you).
The same happened in france, but also in Italy untill 1989, when a new criminal procedure was introduced in our legal sistem.
There was a deep split between investigation and the proper trial: the examining magistrate and the police worked secretly to collect the evidence both of the crime and the investigated's fault.
All proofs collected during investigations could be used into the trial and just during the trial the accused could see what the public prosecutor collected during the investigation( just because investigation was kept secret, while nowadays before the examining magistrate starts to ask questions, he must tell you which crime you are accused of ex art 65 cpp).
The 1930italian criminal procedure code had this mechanism and maybe Kafka (who studied law at the university) wanted to criticise this kind of criminal procedure, showing the results of an inquisitorial model.
So in my opinion it's not true that in this book you can't find laws applied: maybe Kafka wrote this story to show how the system was at that time, emphasizing all its problems from a legal point of view.
But we can also consider that he stressed the social perception of this type of procedure:
secrecy and ignorance of law support corruption.
Joseph K. totally loses hope in justice and the same happens to most of people involved in the system.
K. accepts to be justiced with a knife because of his desperation: he can't prove his innocence because judges are too distant, his lawyer seems not to do anything for him, apart from talking and talking.
Few words about the Jury, still present in our criminal procedure (imported from the french one): if people partecipated in the justice machine, they could maybe feel responsible about its good working and could trust about law and justice.
They aren't left alone with the case, there are judges together with them, who are professionists.
It could be seen as a good balance between a strict interpretation of law and equity, particularly in difficult and heavy cases.
unfortunately I must admit that the results are quite different.
see you tomorrow!
Camilla
After today’s lecture and having read Prof. Robinsons article, there are several aspects in Kafka’s Trial that I am fascinated with.
Two issues I found particularly interesting. Although having already been mentioned, I would like to focus on the “decay” Kafka’s characters experience. The most prominent passage demonstrating Joseph K.’s “decay” would be in the last chapter. As pointed out in Prof. Robinson’s article Kafka rewrote the scene. Whereas in the first version Joseph K. reflects upon calling the state police for help and having the possibility to flee from the “inevitable outcome” of the “Prozess”, in the rewritten passage it seems as if Kafka wanted Joseph K. to surrender himself voluntarily because he even eagerly “runs” towards his execution. One can sense the absence of freedom of choice. I had the impression that the overpowering authority (of the law?) turns Joseph K.’s obedience into absolute determination. A similar kind of determination in the context of a very different execution process can be found in the character “György” in the novel “Fatelessness” by the Hungarian writer Imre Kertesz published half a century later.
The second aspect of the Trial I found interesting is the subject of criminology. In the Trial, “l’uomo delinquente” is not identified with Lambroso’s phrenological element of enormous jaws or another physical appearance which could be associated with less-educated people from the lower classes. On the contrary, Kafka’s justice employs attributes such as “attractiveness” and “the line of the lips” in order to determine the indivual guilt. Yet the line of the lips is not a craftsman’s characteristic but can rather be resembled with an eloquent bourgois. Thus, Kafka is breaking with the notion that severe crimes are a class phenomenon. There was an intense discourse on the same issue in Septemer 1913 when the teacher Ernst August Wagner murdered 15 persons in Württemberg, Germany.
See you tomorrow!
Caroline Westphal
A REAL “KAFKAESQUE” STORY. THE LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S CASE.
In a ordinary morning, the Joseph K.’s life starts an incredible and progressive change. Before the strange arrest, he has noted an unusual situation: the cook that doesn’t have brought the breakfast; the old woman living in front his house that is looking him with a suspicious and curios face. He already suspects something of strange. While the arrest, the two officers don’t tell nothing about the crime. After the book describes the interview by inspector in the bed chamber of female roomer in the boarding house where K. lives. As Martha S. Robinson says in “The law of state in the Kafka’s the trial” there could (….) be no more inappropriate a place for a formal notification. And at the end the strange execution by a knife. So, unreal elements of a criminal procedure that make sensation of confusion. In fact we say a “Kafkaesque trial” or “Kafkaesque situation” to emphasize a trial made in a strange way! We could think that Kafkaesque trials are only in our mind or in our fantasy, but its can’t happen in reality.
Jim Garrison, the famous attorney of J.F.K. trial, when he was explaining his Kennedy murder’s theory to the Court, he saw that the arrest’s dynamic of Lee Harvey Oswald was the same dynamic of Joseph K.’s arrest . This man, was the principal suspected of Kennedy‘s attempt, happened in Dallas on 1963. He worked in the Texas School Book Depository of Dallas, in the big palace, in front of the street where Kennedy was struck. Kennedy was killed by three bullets came from a 6.5 millimeter Italian carbine - Carcano- with a four-power scope that Oswald fired from a window on the sixth floor of the book depository warehouse as the President's motorcade passed through Dallas's Dealey Plaza.
Attorney Jim Garrison demostreted that J.F.K. assassination was made by a cospiracy, and Lee Harvey Oswald was the “larks’s mirror” used to cover this cospiracy. So he didn’t take part in this attempt.
I can’t describe the complete Oswald’s case, but i would underline three aspects of this case, very similar to the Joseph K. story.
First of all, the arrest. Oswald was working in the Book Depository, as he worked every days. So, a normal day with the unusual event represented by the visit of President Kennedy in Dallas. But he was indifferent to its. At the work pause, he went to the lunchroom, inside the palace, to drink a Coke. He bought the Coke, and while he was drinking he learned about the J.F.K. attempt by other workers. When he returned to his work-place, he saw a lot of policemen running up and down into the palace. So, looking this strange situation, he suspected a cospiracy against himself.
After he leaved from the palace, went in his house, and after entered in a theater without paying. (It’s important to know that in this moment, newspapers of other countries told about J.F.K. assassination, and quoted L. H. Oswald as the principal suspected of this attempt with a complete biography – the plot is so clear!!). A few minutes later, police quickly arrived en masse and entered the theater; an officer approached Oswald sitting near the rear and ordered him to stand up; as Oswald said "Well, it is all over now" and appeared to raise his hands in surrender, he struck the officer, but immediately was subdued. As he was led outside the theater, a group of angry people shouted against him, but Oswald replied that he was innocent.( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYAIiErTNg)
The second aspect is the Preliminary examination by an F.B.I. officer: he was interrogated without a lawyer and after his answers consisting as several not guilty declarations, the officer destroyed the verbal.
Final aspect, the “strange execution” of Oswald. While police was bringing him to the Dallas County Jail, Oswald was shot and fatally wounded before live television cameras in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator. Policemen that were holding Oswald, while Ruby shotted , seemed complitely indifferent and motionless, as they put him in front of Ruby with consciousness – an other element that emphasize the cospiracy!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xU7Lhd7Wwo)
I think that the relationship between the Oswald’s story and “The Trial” is very important. The “dynamics” are different, but some constant elements are the same. Both these stories underline the man’s weakness against a “dark power”, and in this “battle” the weak man cannot do nothing against the cospiracy manipulated by this “black power”.
As Joseph K. , L. H. Oswald was innocent, but his destiny was already planned.
See you tomorrow!
Goog night!
Giuseppe Cacciotti
Hi everybody,
Isn't easy to deal with the reading of the work of Kafka: depending on what point of view the you will examine, you have interpretations rather different. The first approach what Kafka writes may seem truly absurd. However, with the right key reading, his works are extremely fascinating, deep and challenging. The key is the knowledge of the personality of the author.
Understand exactly and enjoy the apparent absurdity of the Kafkaesque, prose would need to know because its particular condition of Jew, son of Jews long into Germanic environment (Prague) and therefore dissociated from the Jewish, traditions but not for this fully accepted by their environment. Even more would need to know the staff report writer Kafka with reality, report that he himself describes with surprising clarity and in its journals and in some autobiografiche works introspettiva capacity (example: brief an den Vater).
Read key is here proposed interpretation of psychological, which is perhaps one that is easier and immediate feedback in all the writings of Kafka. Kafka knew the work and activity of Freud and he, repeatedly tried to analyze in a process that could define "psicoanalitico": Recalling that episodes critical of his childhood, rebuilding its relationship with parents and, in particular, the father, whose strong and robust personality acted by force inibitrice on the sensitive boy. The entire work Kafka's you can perhaps define a single journal suffered: is the desire to exit the solitude and give vent, consistency and clarity to his feelings, first of all the feeling of strangeness and indifference towards the world.
Kafka felt unable to live and act in practice as adult conscious and responsible for: for this reason refused for example to marry the girlfriend happy Bauer. Kafka could not feel included in the things that it around, involved and enthusiastic of the suffering and events that were: and as noted in others this capacity for participation and adapting to reality, its inability to lived as misconduct. The misunderstanding, solitude, indifference were experienced by Kafka strongly be it he same (and only he) the cause. The feelings of guilt it followed, and then lies behind your personality, is a metaphysical, without fault by a specific event.
The issue of guilt is recurring throughout the Kafkaesque work. His heroes are guilty, but they are not more than its controfigura. He even plays with the names of his characters: Mr k. in Ein Traum; Josef K. der Prozeß; Mr Samsa in die Verwandlung, where the letters S and M are in place of K and F of his name. At the bottom of the fault of Kafka is its inability to make a clear choice between "his" world, represented by the literature, and the existence bourgeois, represented by the work (worked as employee at an insurance company), by the marriage and family. He never heard not reconcile the two directions and why you felt alienated from society and inappagato in its needs. Was convinced that only those who manage to live the bourgeois rationality, not allowing the irrationality and insecurity, can survive.
This fault must be punished: who knows not adapt is intended for the car-destruction. Its same disease, tuberculosis leading it to the grave just 41 years, is the result of this fault. In an era where not there was talk yet of psychosomatic illnesses, Kafka, with glossy intuition, clearly uncovers the origin of the disease in the weakness of the psyche.
And similarly, for almost all its heroes, at the end when the death that is of course, no sense. A way of escaping the weight of this conflict psychological Kafka found it in the literary work. The ability to write was considered by Kafka what is more important and essential for its existence, a way almost to keep our sanity. Sometimes passes the entire night to write, or even usufruiva holidays to devote himself completely this task. Often his stories or his novels have the characteristic of dreams, as if in the night, and wrote, set its fantasies, its hallucinations on paper. But precisely these fantasies, these dreams seem more real of the same reality, because, while the reality is apparently, the dream is intuition, interpretation of reality.
Kafka wrote essentially for if itself, not for an audience. Had please friend Max Brod to burn, after his death, all still unpublished manuscripts. Fortunately the friend not scored this desire.
Michele Viti
THE PROCESS
In the apartment of Joseph K., the protagonist (one scrupulous used), you have two policemen (Franz and Willem) with an order of appearance for a crime not specified. How the two are street, Joseph speaks the of the his impiccio with Grubach, its affittuaria, and Miss Bursmer, the close of room.
In Office, Joseph is reproached by his superior because attended Irmie, its adolescent cousin. Later to the Opera, the young is dragged to a court packed crowd by a police inspector and discusses here violently with the judge.
Later uncle is know lawyer Huld, making it that will assist it in its judicial question but the famous lawyer the explains that these processes are resolved with judicial, extra systems with corruption and intrigue and take time, giving you sick.
Nevertheless Joseph not cease to undertaking the legal, even if contact with the mysterious and gigantic organization judicial-offices and offices in the last plans or poor homes solai it is always hear more fragile and helpless. In the meantime suffers Leni, avances wife/Secretary of Huld.
At this point of the matter k. is always more involved in the judicial mechanism without knowing the because, and with zeal, which reflected soon in the concerned attitude of the guilty party, to speed up the cause.
Back to the empty Court and has a love story with Hilda, wife of one of the guardians. Later, meets the guardian of the hearing, room introducing it between a crowd of accused pending. These would refer by Huld and his Office Joseph k. know block, a customer is witness of indifference and the hidden powerlessness of the advocate.
Irritated and discouraged, k. decide then to do with less of the services of Hascler and convinced by Leni tries to regain the favours of Titorelli, a painter of famous, but the individual the not is of no aid and K is obliged to flee from a crowd of girls, which are invading the painter's studio.
The days and nights of k. spend always more obsessed by the process, incumbent as a dark threat on his life, and the huge city he warns his solitude and its position of accused, as believes that all - coffee in Office, on the streets - are aware of that process: and in their law eyes the irony and sentencing.
So in the agenda of its 31st birthday, are to find it two separate ladies in black, that it lead in suburbs and the damage a knife because it cuts the Gorge: its rejection are them to kill him.
INTERPRETATION
The first feature is immediately evident to those who act the process of Kafka is the meticulous attention that this writer in the description of reality: people, objects, environments are represented with realistically, yet the situation described by Kafka goes to the beyond the borders of traditional realism. Its write the meticulous realistic insistence is extreme to the point to produce an aura haunted and worrying from the close proximity of the objects.
The another feature affecting this novel is complex and inexorable mechanism of the law, that man is not to know, and making absurd and tragic life. Faced with this inexorability all media in the protagonist may fail, are small wheels not take with unkown wheels constituting that procedural mechanism.
This incomprensibilità and that is inaccessible law originate many present themes in the novel: the solitude of the man; the impossibility of establish a relationship with the world around it and its daily texture of gestures and events to find a plausible sense impossible to happen in a dimension of authenticity; awareness of the condition of excluding 'alien'; the sense of being a determination to ignore the purposes and last the alienation.
This however isn't represented by Kafka as a situation which does not remain that note: the attitude that is not to the resignation or the victimism. Just think that until the last of the protagonist of this novel not desist from its purpose.
Kafka and then describes a tragic condition of mankind which the protagonist of the process does not want to resign. The basis of this glossy and inexorable representation of the human condition there is certainly the transcription of an autobiographical condition: the solitude of Kafka; the conflict situation with the father (shown in the famous 'letter to the parent'); a constant and pathological brain in the face life and the eros (breaks of the engagements); its Jewish condition, namely "eradicated that conflittualmente feels the impact of various cultures in itself; the grim awareness of the failure of its existence.
And clear however that in its pages Kafka wanted also to write down - albeit with the mediation and the depletion of the symbol - historical conditions: l' lie power austro - hungarian, far and although omnipresent on nationalities and minorities oppressed; progressive overwhelming the machine on the human domain; the bureaucratic elefanthiasys of modern society that destroys its gears of the individual vocations; the always more tiny scope of salvation left by this company to humans.
Michele Viti
That is what Kafka reason of the 'unease of civilisation' by decadenti, stretched from the analysis of Freud, is so part of the culture of the 20th century
Hello to all.
After these three lessons that had to do with Kafka's life, works, the relationship that exists between them and the legal field that we studied by us, we can draw some considerations.
Incurred in the debate between Posner and West, we see that is taken into account by the literature, which by the law, the novel "The Trial", has many similarities with both aspects.
If you can say that this is an absolute world of literature, you must also say that many literary references are included in society, the choices made by the character Joseph K., in deciding not to oppose the system, for example, as when returning home, where it could escape or otherwise.
So all this denotes a character that is not tied to economic choices, but personal. Here we respect the position of West, which as we have seen, has a way of thinking much more literary, rather than economic, criticizing R.Posner in the three steps.
What Richard Posner replys West about, in addition to criticizing the method of her, that he thinks lacks technical legal spirit, alleged that in the reading of Kafka, he sees an attack on the economic structure of Pareto by the culture literature in law, represented the beginning of the eighties by Robin West.
That means that the judge of New York, is that the eccentric vision of West, does not consider that the choices made by individuals does not reflect at all the economic model in all its aspects. However, this does not explain why free choice, there is a wealth-maximization, when individuals freely make the choice to allocate resources in the best possible way.
Why the choice to leave the reading to fiction, not allowed, according to Posner, to analyze the choices of economic rationalization and optimization of the wealth of each individual.
And, says Posner, even though Dr. West said that the choice is always made, and that all consensual choices you make are not just economic, he says that is not true, especially when you consider a person sick with mind, whose decisions are affected by total or partial inability to choose.
Even if they can choose, the maximization of their well-being or the gain is zero.
Posner then all the critical steps of West.
But you can see many aspects, which although not the result of a mind as a lawyer, are the observations of a legal, in extremely critical of a judicial system that did not provide sufficient guarantees to the citizen.
This is certainly known in Martha S. Robinson, who, after having listed the metaphorical significance, provided a fairly comprehensive list of critical aspects of legal issues that also reverse the values of our law. As a first aspect we should mention the Parabel "the problem of our laws", where Kafka preface the posting of the general law by the ordinary citizen, the "possession" of the law itself in the hands of the "noble" of the law, understood as those who they hold the knowledge of laws and the ability to make ordinary people to them. Then retrace his steps and assert that the laws were made for the people and the people. Soo that people not of it. Subsequently, the Robinson recalls that Kafka was a doctor in law, and that has affected the right of the period. Then browse the aspects of the process in the novel. They found the total indifference of the police during the investigation, kept secret in the protagonist, describes the situation of the time, when Czechoslovakia was under German influence. During the investigation it is found an enormous contradiction: the investigation must remain secret, however, the guards said to Joseph K. that must remain secret, by dropping the requirement of secrecy. The court is described as a supreme and overriding body, suprajudicial and mysterious, the allegations which constitute the evidence of the crime for which the main character is accused. From all this we can deduce a criticism against the authority of the state. From this then we pass the interpretation that the law of the State, will become the law of God, which in a passive and impassive Joseph K. is to be submitted.
Another aspect is the preterial detention. This, as the Continental System of criminal law, is an exceptional measure. "Only when the guilt was highly probable and those offense was major, when there was danger the allegations would flee, temper with evidence, repeat the offense or the offense would have detention followed an arrest. Failure to detain K. indicated that these factors were apparently not involved, and serves to make K. 's ultimate execution in more grotesque and problematic. "
So the system of preventive measures is not only not respected, but not taken into account, where the arrest is made in an ordinary public office.
That said, even if the list is not complete, we can say that the process could not at all defined process.
All this is linked to the "Parable of the Gatekeeper".
In the sense that all that is within the right of a civil society, is very uncertain, evanescent, confined, even though always in favor of people. The parable exposes the problems that can result from too blindly and observance of the law carefully. The Gate keeper did not make enter a man coming from the country, which was to be the only person under the law (divine?) allowed to enter.
Just as the law stipulated that this had failed, had failed even men and people in general in not understanding that the same rules were created for themselves.
So this has a strong connection with "The Trial", which are a prelude to "The Problem of Our Laws" and "The parable of the Gate keeper."
If you never allow the public to have access to the knowledge of the laws, never can be done so that society can fully enjoy these rights, duties and protections.
And that what is expressed in "The Trial".
A. Festucci
I've appreciated today prof.Conte's comment about "A Hunger Artist": he referred to that awful and dehumanizing activity known as "dwarf-tossing" (or "dwarf-throwing"). I came across this theme during another 'Studying Law at Roma3' course when we talked about human dignity. I won't describe that activity, whose details are really horrifying, but it's interesting that such an absurd activity, close indeed to the Hunger artist's one, used to be practised and after that the French authorities banned it in France, the UN Committee on Human Rights had to decide on the legality of this ban (and of course the ban was legal!).
It's an example, perfectly mentioned by prof. Conte, of the factual background and meaning available in Kafka's novels. It's true: he wrote novels, that can be clearly considered something different from judgments. But all the humanities come out and get inspired from our own reality. Even Kafka's absurd, oniric, nearly somehow non-sense stories are full of real characters, real relationships, perhaps real events.
I think Kafka, more than other authors, IS Law-and-Literature in all the senses prof.Harreman explained. Nothing is closer to reality than the parables, as the Gatekeeper: how hard is not only to have access to Law but even for trials and proceedings to come to an end?Citizens wait too often for a decision. This is an undeniable matter of fact.
Giulio Luciani
Hi everybody!
This week we attended the lesson of Prof. Marc Harreman; he speaks about Franz Kakfa.
Kafka (1883-1924) is considered an enigmatic writer. So I want to talk about “The trial” (Der Prozes). This book mostly written around 1914, unfinished by Kafka, edited and published by his friend Max Brod in 1925.
“The trial” is the story of Joseph K. an officer’s bank, that in his birthday he is arrested and accused of an undisclosed crime by two policemen.
It has set in a country with authoritarian and oppressive government, probably Prague.
After the arrest J.K. however is free and he can continue his work at the bank, but he remaines under arrest.
A day his uncle, that he knows about the process, recommends him a counsel for the defence, Dr. Hould, he is a very important lawyer. Six months later the defence was not ready yet, when J.K. visits Dr. Hould meets the client Block, that he describes his negatives experiences about the processes. Then J.K. goes to the cathedral to escort a Italian’s client of bank.
In the church J.K. meets a priest that he tells a parabel of “ The gatekeeper”.
The priest says to know about his trial. After six months a passive J.K. becomes executed.
J.K. before his death says: “come un cane”.
I think that the vision of law in Kafka is paradoxical because the title “Der Prozes” actually isn’t the trial, infact it’s an ironic expression. I find that the criminal procedure is similar at inquisitory model, where it doesn’t find the right of being considered innocent before the sentence.
At the same time J.K. is free, it’s strange!!!!
I think that Kafka’s point of view is negative about the law and the process.
For him the law corresponds to government’s authority and oppression.
For me Kafka doesn’t believe in the wordly justice but maybe he believes in the God’s justice, because I think that the priest and the gatekeeper have a fundamental part of this book.
J.K. must accept things and his trial as they are.
But is this really correct, or is it better legitimate??
Federica Meglio
Hello everybody!!
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka about a character named Josef K. A terrifying psychological trip into the life of an ordinary man (Josef K.) who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him.. In the Trial, Kafka clearly picks apart bureaucracy and the illogical practices of large governments. It is essential that we understand the evolution of these systems (which greatly impact us today) as well as clearly understand the lunacy of some of the policies that those very systems bring to the table. Kafka is trying to relay a message of criticism that he hopes will make society wake up to the injustices that threaten individual freedoms. Kafka holds an important place in literary history himself. "He is considered one of the most significant figures in modern world literature; the term Kafkaesque has, in fact, come to be applied commonly to grotesque, anxiety-producing social conditions or their treatment in literature". Kafka's style and message lives on through his literature to this very day. His message to beware of unwieldy bureaucracy and tightly guard our personal liberties is still valid to this very day.
See you soon
F.PISCHEDDA
Hi everybody!
Together with the trial, I red also “Before the law”. And I think that there are many nexus among two book.
In both of them there’re obscurity about a law. The problems started from the incomprehension of the law; people, common people, make last ditch for understand it, but the unsatisfactory outcome generates tragedy and paradox. Like in the trial, people stripe to arrive at the objective…but they fail.
But I think than in anyone of this book, conduct is unhopeful. In fact, in “before the law” the farmer- who attended all his life for overstep the door of the law- doesn’t surrender, and try to understand how enter, over and over again. Like Josef K.: he doesn’t know the reason of his trial, but he keeps on defend himself.
So, for my opinion, even if Kafka is more critic with a law and discouraged, isn’t resigned himself.
Good Easter!
Daniela D’Annibale
Hi everyone!
I liked these lessons about kafka. They made me interested in Kafka's "the trial" that I haven't red before.
Some aspects of this novel are very strange if we look them under nowdays legal system:
- Joseph K., a thirty years old Chief Clerk, was arrested without having done anything wrong,even if it's not so strange if we think about cases of judicial mistakes
- during K.'s interrogation the Inspector didn't say to him why he was arrested while in our legal system during guarantee's interrogation the judicial police has to explain the reason of the arrest and people can be private of their freedom only in peremptory cases decided by law
- after the arrest K.was free to go to the bank to work while in our system it's possible only if the j.p.i. gives you the arrest into your domicile
- the name of the novel is "the trial" even if in the plot there isn't a trial. So it let to think that the trial isn't the second stage of criminal proceedings of the Czech legal system but an internal psycological trial : K. has to choose what he has to do and finally he chooses to remain passive and to be executed.
All this aspects aren't strange if we look to the inquisitorial system where the investigations were secret and also to our code, "Rocco",in 1930 which allowed in the trial a lot of the proofs found during the invetigations by p.m. and J.i.p.
Looking this novel we can see a Kafka's criticism of the czech legal system but I think this novel doesn't refer only to criminal procedure but to the God law and the final divine judgement.
We can also see in "the trial" the condition of the normal man who has to know law but he can't know all laws and this makes him insecure.
Bye bye
Giorgia Melia
Hi everybody,
...if I'm sentenced, I'm not only sentenced to die, but sentenced to defend too till death...
these Kafka's words are in his
"the diaryes" but they can be josef K.'s too,protagonist of "the trial".
Josef has a nichilist conception of life and of the man that loses oneself in the reality's labyrinth....and so, he becomes guilty when to born and he's sentenced immediately to suffer. He loses every certitude for fall in a sad condemnation.
In "the trial" Kafka shows his point of view about the reality, it's cynical and resigned, but it doesn't be confused with chaos's satisfaction of other modern authors.In fact for him the loss is a tragedy, the incomunicability is a strong suffering; Kafka looks for every way of comunicate with himself and with other, he looks for in the law a last hope, but in realty...he so, sinks.
Valentina Carafa
Kafka's The Trial
Kafka's The Trial follows a man, K., as he is arrested and released for an unknown offense and attends a series of bizarre trials. He tries to comprehend and extricate himself from an outrageous course of events, which transpire suddenly in his life. K. is persecuted by this unimaginable court, which seems to hold a quasi-authoritative place in society. K.'s life seems to spiral out of control while he and the reader struggle to understand what is going on. Kafka uses this piece to criticize bureaucracy, even in a seemingly democratic society. Kafka believes that bureaucracy is endangering the freedoms of the individual in modern society and that it is extremely detrimental to society in the long run. It is not readily identifiable what geographical location Kafka is referring to in The Trial. Based on the rest of the novel's bizarre twists and turns it seems that Kafka did not want to nail down any concrete location to weight down his surrealist story. While there is no link with any known location (other than perhaps Kafka's hometown of Prague) the surroundings are modern and urban. In The Trial, K spends most of his time in various buildings with very little mention of any identifying characteristics. Kafka seems to center around middle class urbanites for the most part. Kafka tackles the evils of government and bureaucracy, concentrating on the social implications of these man made authorities on the individual.
Reification seems to serve a pervasive role in Kafka's The Trial. Reification is when something abstract is given material worth by a society It seems that Kafka is questioning how the legal system has been given so much authority and power making it a material entity. In 1912, when Kafka penned The Trial, the rise of the republic was evident around Europe. There was a renewed emphasis on realism and rationale, which also makes an appearance in The Trial. When published, Kafka's novels "evoked the hopelessness of individuals confronting a relentless, machinelike society in which they are minor cogs". As the threat of war swirled in Europe (World War I was just on the horizon), anti Semitism and nationalism surrounded Kafka. In the arts, the rise of modernity created a challenge to positivism that could not be silenced.
The author of The Trial, Franz Kafka lead an interesting life which holds some parallels to his protagonist.Kafka seems to be attempting to reveal the evils of modernization and the rise of institutions throughout society. The Trial takes aim at the absurdities of the legal system, a system that Kafka must have been well acquainted during his legal studies. Kafka seems to be extremely concerned about man's survival in the modern world and the loss of rights and freedoms that he will have to endure. Kafka seems to be trying to warn his readers of the pervasive nature of corrupt forces in society.
See you soon,
M.Petriccione
Hi everybody,
This week we told about Kafka, in particular we analysed “ The Trial”.
Kafka was a lawyer and for this reason he saw things and situations from a legal point of view; besides he was influenced by Prof. Gross, which was the founder of criminology.
In his novels Kafka criticized the law system and the government, because the law was known by few ( lawyers and judges ) and the other people didn’t understand it.
Kafka’s works were published after his death by his best friend Max Brod , although Kafka asked him to destroy everything. In 1925 Brod published “The Trial” (Der Prozess), but in fact in the story there isn’t any trial. In this novel Kafka describes a legal system, that is obscure for normal people, which try to know and enter in the system but they are obstructed; also police and court are corrupt.
The protagonist is Joseph K, which is arrested, but he doesn’t know why. K. is worried, he doesn’t understand the charges against him and he is considered guilty because he doesn’t know the law.
According to K. the court organisation is incomprehensible and he doesn’t know what to do.
K. meets a priest (prison chaplain) that he tells a parable: ”The Doorkeeper”.
In this way, the priest tries to explain to K. that he must accept the law as it is. The meaning of this parable is: just act and fight for your rights!
bye bye
Vanessa Malizia
Hello World! Among the authors processed so far during the lessons of law and humanites, Kafka is certainly one that I liked more. This author had just read "The Metamorphosis" when I was in high school and deal with the novel "Der Prozess" was very interesting with regard to the description of a judicial system where the bureaucracy is without piety and unpredictable.Important concept is "the law is whatever the nobles do". Kafka is an author of which I share the pessimism law.
Bye
Giorgia Ciucci
Dear all,
This week has been very useful to discover a new way to read Kafka’s novel ; I have read “ the trial” in a new way after prof. Harreman’s lectures . I was fascinated by reading the novel for the way that Kafka uses a character like Joseph K. to describe his pessimistic vision of legal system and society.
I agree with someone who in class talks about the Kafka’s historic influences while he wrote this novel: Kafka is son of his time, he reflects in his work the fear, the man’s condition and the concept of destiny.
I just want to stress that in “the trial“ there is a contrast between Joseph K., government and the court system; in the plot there are a lot of strange things!
At the beginning it’s so strange the arrest’s scene, nobody can tell him why he is arrested! Moreover he’s arrested but he’s free! He can go at work etc etc... He don’t know law but he’s sure that he is innocent! Therefore, descriptions of warders and palace of justice really impressed me: dust, reek, grey! Everything has a sinister aspect.
Kafka was a lawyer and he describes situations from a hopeless and mistrust point of view but I think that “the trial” isn’t so useful for students by the point of view of strict criminal procedure otherwise it’s more useful because he criticized the system through the knowledge of the law..
Isn’t it the role of intellectual in the society?
Isn’t the law a tool to understand and, in terms of how it is applied, to know society?
According to me, law and its application is a very important part of all states and isn’t important the age we live in.
I wish you a good Easter! See you on 15th April!
Silvia Faranca
Hi everybody!
I would like to say something about doctor hammerman's lecture of franz kafka, expecially "the trial" (der prozess).
I found this novel very dramatic and pessimistic, probably the adjective "kafkian" (that describes an absurde, distressing, paradoxixal situation) is referred to this novel, which leave the reader brethless and lost in many ways.
This novel is very helpful for the lawyer, by making him reflect on some legal problems and the legal system in general:
- We can easily see the difference between our criminal law system and Kafka's criminal law system:
1)The second one is inquisitorial (as it was in "codice Rocco). Magistrate has a central role and there's no contrapposition between the parts.
2)the suspect cannot know for which crime he is put under arrest. Obviously this make the difense very hard. There's a part of the novel, where Josef K. finds very difficult to write a defensive memorial without knowing from which accusation he has to defend himself.
3)There's no right to defend. The defense is "just tolerated".
4)There's a hierarchy between the magistrates.
In all the novel, seems very difficult to have justice. One step forward, one step back. For example, Josef K. feels sick just entering in the tribunal, which is describe as a very old, dark, dusty, grey, depressing building. In the tribunal, a line of people waiting for a long long time. Very disheartening. Another example could be the parabol of the gatekeeper: in private law, I think is not such a bad thing to discourage people from taking a trial; often people get a trial for futile reasons and that is one of italian justice problems.
But in criminal law, to defend is an irrinunciable right and it cannot be restrict.
For Kafka all the legal system is corrupted, and anyone who is in it is corrupted too. From the men which eat Joseph K.'s braekfast, to the upper judges, or lawyers, and noone try to resist to that.
In my opinion, this an important thing that Kafka wanted to stress.
Josef K. is a very passive character: he doesn't care too much about the trial, everything he does seems to be useful.
In the end he seems to feel guilty even he was not, killed "like a dog".
Bye!
Andrea Marangoni
Hello word!
There ’s another sentence that attract my attention on the trial…
Block, a client of the same K.’ Lower, say:” I live into the process since five years ago”…live into the process..this is a perfect example of the Kafkian pessimism and disillusionment about the justice. In fact, using this sentence he wants underline how the process became the life, the ordinary life. This is a mechanism that absorb their life and transform it in the ordinary. And the protagonist lives it how unchangeable and out-of-hand condition. This osmosis is definitive for our protagonist. And, like life concludes with die, the process has the same conclusion. The justice is sick and arbitrary, like unjustified (probably) punishment.
Have a good night!
Daniela D’Annibale
Hi everybody,
with the Dr. Marc Harreman. we analyzed the “trial” of Kafka. The most important element into the story is the complex act of the low. All the things that Josef tries to use is useless and it doesn’t change the progression of the trial. He just has to wait the decision of the authorities without
enforce his rights in front of it.
Kafka has a negative vision of the low in all the book.
The corruption is in all the different levels of the justice and among all the officers. The lawyer useful to the process are described by the merchant Block, but he has never seen them during all those years in which he attended the Tribunals, he met only “little lawyers” there. Very important is the vision of the processes of Kafka, he says that processes are not solved by memories or official meeting but by the personal friendships between lawyers and officers, these are the determinants of the success of the trials. Also the three solutions about the resolution of the process that the painter Titorelli
proposes to Josef are curious: the effective absolution, the fictitious absolution, and the
postponement.
The first solution cannot be reached because the painters doesn’t remember these kind of absolutions.
The second one consists of the power that the judges have to absolve the defendant from the
accusation. They don’t have the right to excuse the defendant. This is a function of the judges of the highest degree. Thus the process never stops but it can be reactivated in every moment. The postponement instead consists in maintaining the process into the lowest level. It doesn’t end but the defendant is reassured by a possible condemnation .
In this way only the hypothesis in which the protagonist has to cohabit with the process for many
years are envisaged.
All these situations underline the pessimism of Kafka and his unhopeful in law like something in which man cannot participate but just suffer without having any active role.
Riccardo Varano
Hi everybody!!!!
I want to do a comparison between Joseph and Gregor Samsa,the metamorphosis's protagonist.
Kafka places the protagonist of "the trial" in a situation where he can only succumb to terrible circumstances or attempt to build a new life around them.
Joseph,like Gregor,is more than willing to fight back for control of his life.
They are closed in theirselves and
fear the life, fear the world... and so, they are of passive men, suffer the situations and suffer for the realtity that have near them.
Never or almost never they succeed to win on the contrary, the one condemnes himself to insect's life ( sad, dark, bleak, lonely..)the other gives in to the sentence. Their life don't know the rebellion or to talk NO at the developments of situations. They live on a merry go round that they don't know to stop ....
Valentina Carafa
Hello!
...Very significant the concept expressed by discourse given by J.K. when, in the second chapter of the book ( "Der Prozes"),takes place the first hearing: << What happened to me is not a single case, and therefore of little importance, but it demonstrates a way forward that is applied to the detriment of many.(...)There isn't doubt that behind the actions of this Court there is a large organization of corruptible guards, ridiculous inspectors and modest instructors judges >>.
The reality is all an immense Court ...
Bye
Giorgia Ciucci
Hello!!
The institutions are described in the literature of Kafka through a singular internal vision, a mental state tormented by feelings of guilt and inadequacy (also for the bad relationship with his father). For Posner, Kafka was a very good case for Freud; his neuroses are near to his literature: ambiguous, surreal, not complete and they disturb the reader with a wake of fantasy.
In the third chapter there is an important speech by J. .during the first audience in which he attacks the judicial bureaucracy.
J.K. is guilty of not known the law but is impossible for ordinary people know it, and that is evident in two parables discussed at lesson, "the gate-keeper" and "the problem of our laws."
"The trial" had a great influence in the general culture, in fact the adjective Kafkiano refers to paradoxical and absurd situations.
Bye...
Giorgia Ciucci
Hi,
This is a bit of an unusual request. I have a letter here for Mr. Marc but I am not sure it will reach him if I sent it to Erasmus University. Is there any way I can get an address to which I can sent it?
Thx,
Happiness2all (at) gmail dot.
com.
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