Since its original publication date in 1925, The Trial of Franz Kafka has resisted interpretation. At first glance, the novel's seemingly simple and serial sequence of events poses no problem for the reader. Although the incidents involving Joseph K. are themselves particularly strange and almost fantastical, the reader is able to follow along. However, in the penultimate chapter of the novel, the reader discovers a completely confusing story about a man's entry into "the Law." The chapter and the story it contains pose a problem to anyone who wishes to ask "what is the Trial about?" Although it seems reasonable to be able to extrapolate the "broader meaning" of the novel itself from a story within it, both parts of the novel resist analysis that would lead to a clear conclusion. The story “Before the Law”, the text of the discussion between the priest and K. in the chapter “In the Cathedral”, is open to a wide range of interpretations and, confronted with this story, the reader and K. become frustrated by the lack of a solid, logical ending. This experience, however, is not at all isolated to this particular chapter; in The Trial there is a systematic denial of definitive and unambiguous conclusions. Throughout the novel, the reader actively attempts to reach various conclusions regarding the "meaning" of "Before the Law" and K.'s trial, while searching for an illuminating connection between the two. But ultimately, Kafka's account leaves him with nothing concrete and, therefore, without a solid interpretation. “Before the Law” frustrates the reader not because it is particularly complicated, but because it seems both full of contradictions and paradoxes but, upon examination, there appear to be no inconsistencies. Although a rather unsatisfying conclusion, "Before the Law" does a good job of summarizing the problems readers associate with The Trial; there is no rhyme, reason, or calculable projection of how K.'s legal proceedings will end and, ultimately, the significance of his innocence or guilt is completely suspended. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Many problems associated with interpretations of The Trial arise from the translation of the title of the work itself. The German title is Der Prozess, for the intuitive English reader, “the process.” The differentiation between the two terms “trial” and “process” directly testifies to the difficulty of understanding inherent in the novel. The trial, according to the nuanced English word, designates both a judicial process, that is to say the discovery of evidence, the declarations of the parties and moderation by a judge, and finally an absolute judgment at the end of 'such a process. As we can see, there is a stark contrast between the process itself and what is expected at its end, a judgment. It is this discrepancy between what the reader is provided and what they intuitively expect that exacerbates The Trial's problems. While it is (to say the least) odd to find courtrooms and scenes in apartment complexes and nymphomaniac women stalking the accused, the reader can handle it, and well although these events are very strange, they are not decisive. What really bothers the reader is the lack of decision, the blatant absence of any "precise element" indicating K.'s acquittal (or even his innocence or guilt). K.'s acquittal seems, after speaking to Titorelli, almost impossible to obtain. According to the painter, there are three ways to progress in the judicial system; Acquittal, although the most desired outcome, constitutes ahistorical anomaly. The painter asserts that K.'s innocence should, however, guarantee his acquittal and that the judges only need simple proof. K. says, however, that this is a contradiction; K.his innocence seems (at least to him) quite obvious and he has not yet been acquitted. Furthermore, before discussing the acquittal, the painter spoke at length about how judges can be influenced in order to obtain a favorable verdict. “These contradictions are easily explained,” replies the painter. “We are talking about two different things here: what the law says and what I have experienced personally; the two should not be confused. (153) Although it seems true that there is no contradiction here per se, the reader detects something a little disturbing; the Law, apparently, is not always respected – but who is the Law? Are they just those gigantic, long, complicated volumes that contain all the legal precedents of the last hundred years, or is the law the people who make the decisions and run the courts? Just as K. cannot firmly grasp the ethereal nature of the legal system, the reader cannot fully conclude who, or what, strictly makes up the law. This lack of resolution causes the shock associated with K.'s execution at the end of the novel, and although it is a kind of "final judgment", it does not arise from any easily discernible method of justice . Because, in The Trial, justice really does not exist; the reader encounters no notion of traditional, or at least rational, legal justification anywhere in the text. The reader's frustration inevitably comes to a head in the penultimate chapter, "In the Cathedral." Just before the introduction of the story “Before the Law”, the reader is aware that the novel is coming to its end. So far, the reader has not received anything remotely resembling a final decision regarding K. and his status as defendant; surely, the reader assures himself, there must be some kind of denouement that will make clear exactly what is happening in this book. Unfortunately, the story that seems to immediately explain the content of The Trial only perpetuates the ambiguous qualities of the novel itself. The story “Before the Law” concerns a man's attempt to enter “the law”. The story, however, never engages in specifics as to who is responsible for the man's inability to enter, and furthermore, the reader is never informed of what "the law" is ". It seems that the identity of "the law" is perfectly obvious, but, in accordance with the different translations of "der prozess", "the law" does not necessarily imply justice and final decision. “The law,” then, is perhaps only a process that has no ultimate conclusion (beneficial or otherwise), just like the experience of man in his attempts to enter into it. As the discussion between the priest and K. shows, there are many ways to interpret the story. At first, K. is convinced that the man was deceived: “the gatekeeper only passed on the crucial information when it could no longer be useful to the man.” (217) The priest, however, shows that the doorman did not in fact deceive, but only fulfilled his duty by answering whatever questions he could. For the doorman to have deceived the man, says the priest, a contradiction must arise from the “two important statements” made by the doorman; “'that he cannot grant him admission now'; and the other: “this entrance was reserved for you only”. » (217). To the reader (and to K.), however, this does not seem satisfactory – both parties still believe that the gatekeeper withheld important information that could have immediately allowed the man into justice or dissuaded him from waste his life. inwaiting for the opportunity to enter. The priest goes on to discuss other opinions on the story; that the gatekeeper is actually the one who has been deceived and is subordinate to the man, or that both are in fact deceived. The priest, however, never commits to a single interpretation of the story; it “simply underlines the various opinions which exist on the question” (218). He is, however, quick to warn K. that he “must not pay too much attention to opinions,” which, as the reader must surely feel, is a particularly inappropriate warning. Why discuss opinions if K. is not going to pay attention to them? Throughout the discussion, however, the priest provides two statements without bias, that is, they do not tend to support a distinct interpretation of the text as to whether it was the doorkeeper or the man who had been deceived. First, the priest states that "commentators tell us: the correct understanding of a question and the wrong understanding of a question are not mutually exclusive." (219) This statement is unfortunately not addressed by K. in the rest of the conversation, and although at first glance it seems to propose a contradiction, or at least a paradox, it is actually very useful in unpacking the history and trial. in its entirety. The discussion between the priest and K. that follows the story is based on the assumption that one person (most likely the man, potentially the doorman) is being deceived. Although the priest may have explained it adequately after K.'s initial reaction to the story, the idea of ​​deception generates the conversation that follows. The notion of deception involves a deceiver and someone who is deceived; K. thinks that it is the man who is being deceived by the doorman, while the priest offers arguments to the contrary. Both interpretations seem viable, but the real question is not who is being deceived, but whether there is any deception in the story. What at first glance seem to be contradictions to the reader and to K., such as “correct understanding and misunderstanding are not mutually exclusive,” are in reality not contradictions at all. Instead of the man or the doorman, it is the reader who is deceived by the proposition of statements which seem at first glance to be negations. At first, a contradiction is welcoming, because it entails a certain “one or the other” quality. However, Kafka, true to the perplexing nature of the justice system that permeates the rest of the novel, consistently uncovers the ambiguous nature of the ensuing discussion and of the story itself. To begin discussing the first of the “contradictions,” it is best to define the words that have the most meaning, which in this case are “correct” and “misunderstanding.” "Correct" implies an objective standard in which there is a question unalterable. The “misunderstanding” is, however, subjective: one can misunderstand material X in various ways. However, a misunderstanding does not directly imply an error; it simply means that one has not understood material X in the usual way. Perhaps even further, one can perceive matter X completely upside down and find oneself in a paradox, but this does not absolutely exclude that understanding matter is incorrect (i.e. the opposite of correct and therefore mutually exclusive). Furthermore, there appears to be a difference between the parts of speech "correct understanding" and "misunderstanding"; although the first appears to be a noun (because of the word "the"), the second phrase could beeither a noun or a verb, that is, the process of misunderstanding. K., in his discussion with the priest, is engaged in a process of understanding (or misunderstanding) the story – however, due to the large number of viable interpretations available, it seems that there is no of “correct understanding”. .” Or perhaps, further still, that all interpretations of history are “the right understanding,” even if they arise from an obscuration of the facts of history. In this way, it seems that “Before the Law” in no way resists interpretation, because it constitutes fertile ground for a myriad of analyses! The effect, however, is a reflection of the continuing problem in the rest of the novel. If all understanding is viable, then there is no "this is wrong and that is true", and so "correct" understanding can result from a complete misunderstanding of the text. The second statement made by the priest concerns truth and necessity. After discussing the final interpretation of the story, according to which it is impossible to pass any judgment on the actions of the gatekeeper as a servant of "the law", K. states that to accept this particular opinion, he You have to consider that everything the doorman said was in fact true. The priest replies: “No… you should not consider everything as true, you just have to consider it as necessary.” (223). K., visibly discouraged, replies that it is “a depressing opinion… The lie is transformed into a universal system”. (223) The distinction made between “truth” and “necessity” is unpleasant because it leaves the reader with a third option that invades the generally accepted true/false dichotomy: not being false. In the story "Before the Law", the gatekeeper does not provide the man with all the relevant information about events that are currently taking place or could take place in the story. In fact, it seems to give only half of what would be relevant to man; that "you can't get in now" could be followed by either "but you can in five minutes or in X amount of time" or, even worse, "and you can never get in again in the future." These are possible additions to the original statement, and they might be useful to the man – but the gatekeeper does not say them. Does this make him a liar, that is to say a propagator of falsehood? Or is he telling the truth, but forgetting something – and by neglecting to say something, is it a lie? Unfortunately, there is no way to get to either extreme of the truth, and therefore the gatekeeper's initial statement must be that third thing – and not false. Again, there is no definitive answer that one can construct regarding the gatekeeper's statements to the man waiting to enter the law – K. and the priest cannot even s to hear about what seems like an easy question; whether the doorman is lying or not. There are no concrete conclusions because, as K. says, “lies form a universal system”; there is no way to detect what is definitively true or false using evidence, because each side of the story generates multiple viable interpretations. The doorman, as the priest explains to K., must have contradicted himself in his two important statements so that he, curiously, made a contradiction and therefore deceived the man. The gatekeeper's two statements, "that he cannot grant him entry now" and "this entry was intended only for you [the man]", seem at first glance incongruous because it does not seem logical that a the entrance reserved for a single person would also be eternally closed to him. If in fact a contradiction arose from these statements, then it would be clear that the gatekeeper, intentionally orno, deceived the man. It's not so clear, however, because the doorman says he can't grant this man entry "right now." The implication that flows from this statement is that the man, although he was refused admission at that time, will be admitted at a later date. The fact that he is ultimately not admitted is disturbing and seems, once again, to testify to the indefinite nature of what the doorman says. The second statement spoken by the gatekeeper concerns the properties assigned to the entrance. The doorman states at the end of the story that "the entrance was reserved for [the man] only." When the reader first hears this statement, they feel a slight anger at the fact that this information was kept from the man. Worse still, the reader does not understand why, although the entrance was intended for man, he was never admitted; it seems impossible to decipher the reasons (if any?) why the man was never admitted. There is, however, something very clear in the conversation which takes place between the doorman and the man; When the man asks the doorman why no one else has ever asked to be admitted “to the law,” the doorman does not actually answer his question. Because of his response, we assume that the man was asking about this entry and why no one else had ever come asking for entry, and the reader gets a potentially sufficient answer in that this particular entry was intended only for that. man in particular. Here again, the reader finds himself endowed with a “non-false”; it is not untrue that entry was only for the man because readers of the novel have no evidence to the contrary, but it does not necessarily seem true either because the man was never admitted . Perhaps the gatekeeper, in omitting the potential last half of his previous sentence, forgot to finish that last sentence – that, perhaps, the entrance was intended only to test the man, or that this entrance was intended only to man. man must wait an eternity. These possibilities are extrapolations and are not individually supported by the text of the story, but their potential applicability only serves to show that "Before the Law" is a microcosm of the systematic lack of definitions that permeates the rest of the novel. Additionally, it is possible that the second important piece of information the gatekeeper gives the man comes solely because the man has obeyed the law for so many years. It is possible to imagine that at the beginning of the events of the story, the man actually received all the information that the doorman could have given him. From there, it took the man's apparent commitment to sit and stay near the entrance to show that he was ready to enter into "the law", and perhaps even the he did. In keeping with the erratic and unreasonable themes of the rest of The Trial, in which the courts appear to be a corrupt and illogical system, "the law" in the story might simply be a mirror of the frustrating process K. finds himself in throughout the novel . The man was subjected to a sort of trial without him even realizing it, and after demonstrating that he was faithful to the law, he was finally denied access; a very unexpected outcome, but again, one in keeping with the unpredictable and surprising nature of “the law,” the doorman, and the justice system in the novel. Another question worth asking is what would have happened if the man had simply ignored the doorman and entered of his own accord. The doorman gives the very last words of the story and, after declaring that the entrance is for the man only, he says: "I will go and shut it now." (217) Now, it seems, the entrance was always, 1998.