Time and Reality in Kafka's The Trial and The Castle

Author(s): Margaret Church

Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jul., 1956), pp. 62-69
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/440948
Accessed: 04-01-2018 04:29 UTC

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 TIME AND REALITY
IN KAFKA'S THE TRIAL
AND THE CASTLE

MARGARET CHURCH

Kafka once wrote in an the same place that they were in

aphor-
ism that one of his most import- the evening before.
ant wishes was "to attain a view On his first Sunday in court, K.
of life in which life, while still re- hurries to arrive at nine o'clock
taining its natural full-bodied rise "although he had not even been
and fall, would simultaneously be required to appear at any specified
recognized no less clearly as a noth- time."3 Despite the fact that he is
ing, a dream, a dim hovering."1 late he walks more slowly as he
This remark describes with some
approaches the house of the exam-
accuracy the style and mood ofiners,
his as if now he had abundant
time. If anything, Kafka is more
two central works The Trial and
The Castle and shows that it was
adept at creating the dream than
Kafka's aim to employ in his the
fic-"full-bodied rise and fall" of
life. When K. leaves the examin-
tion the idea that time and space
are illusory. ing room, the magistrate myster-
The dreamlike quality of time iously gets to the door before him
values and the assumption of an as in a dream people appear at
interior time recognized alone by the beck and call of our fears and
the officials and K. appear through- wishes.
out The Trial. In a passage deleted In the unfinished chapter "Das
from the first chapter, Kafka had Haus" we find the curious juxta-
written that the riskiest moment position of dream upon dream. As
K.
of the day is the moment when lies down on the couch in his
one awakes. "Man ist doch im office, his thoughts hover between
Schlaf und im Traum wenigstensdream and reality, only here reali-
scheinbar in einem von Wachen ty is that of K.'s waking life which
wesentlich verschiedenen Zustand is often like a dream to the reader.
gewesen."'2 Because K. this morningThus Kafka makes us aware of
has found his world different from various levels of reality-the dream
the way it was the evening before, within the dream. K's first dream
we understand that part of the represents his alienated situation
dream world has intruded into his as he views Frau Grubach's board-
everyday world. The opening of
ers, many unknown to him, for he
"The Metamorphosis" may be had for some time not bothered
compared with that of The Trial himself about concerns of the
where Kafka writes that it takes house. Then as he turns from the
great vigilance to see thingsgroup
in and hurries into the law
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court, corridors and rooms become Time has not moved on this level
familiar "als wairen sie seine Woh- of experience although K. has
nung seit jeher."4 As K. becomes lived through a whole day of clock
more deeply implicated in the time. K. deals with this situation
court, the details of living lose in the realm of action by asking
for him their significance, the the clerks to clear out the lumber
dream becomes more like the inner room the next day although un-
dream. consciously he recognizes that his
In connection with the dream it experience is an inner one, for he
should be noted that K. is often would not ask them to do this if
"in the dark." Heavy curtains
he thought that the whipper and
hang over the windows in thethe
ad-warders were there for the
vocate's bedroom; in the cathedral clerks to see. It is K.'s fault that
K. by mistake extinguishes his lampthe warders are being whipped,
and "Er blieb stehen, es war ganzthus the scene represents hidden
dunkel, er wusste gar nicht, anguilt. He asks the clerk to clear it
welcher Stille der Kirche er sich out knowing that he cannot re-
befand.'"5 In this dream worldmove one the imprint of the scene
loses one's bearings; and since K. his mind other than by the
from
is lost inwardly, his physical rela-
destruction of its outward symbols.
tion to objects and places is Time
anhas stood still in this back
uncertain one, too. room of K.'s consciousnss, a trick
When the student enters the ex- made possible by Kafka's concept
aming room where K. stands alone of the idea of time as reality.
with the woman who occupies the The appearance of K.'s uncle and
apartment outside, K. experiences the mention of his daughter, Erna,
is one of the few insights we have
his first meeting with a representa-
into K.'s past. K.'s uncle under-
tive of the official group on human
terms as a rival.8 This meeting stands, without being told, the
implies the recognition that the facts of K.'s case. K. is aware that
trial is on a different level from he has known all along that his
"the full-bodied rise and fall." uncle would turn up, for the uncle,
like the
Neverthelss? it is interesting to rest of the characters in
note that the meeting takesthe book, has reality only in re-
place
in the same examining room lation
whereto K.'s inner life. As a
K. had had his first hearing. molder
Kafka of K.'s past, the uncle, too,
like the family of Amalia in The
thus creates a link between the
two worlds (inner and outer), a
Castle, is implicated. The uncle is
link which gives artistic unitypart
to of the everlasting present of
the passage. K.'s mind time, neither past nor
A scene in the lumber room' in present having reality except as
they are viewed by K. The Pla-
the bank leads to further insights
tonic character of Kafka's idea of
into the time experience in The
Trial. When K. returns to the time is clear when we observe that
lumber room on the second eve- K. (as the initial suggests) is a
symbol, not an individual, so we
ning, he finds everything exactly
as he had left it the night before.
are dealing here not with a specific
The whipper is still standing relationship
in of past and present
the same position in front of the
but with a general one.
warders. As K. opens the door, In the uncompleted chapter
"Fahrt zu Mutter" we find the
the warders at once cry out, "Sir!"
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same general relation between past records of earlier acts which in life
and present. K.'s mother is almost are often inaccessible because
blind, so unlike the uncle, she is pressed into the unconscious. That
ignorant of K.'s plight. Her re- this unconscious level is unreason-
fusal to be implicated in K.'s prob-able and primitive is seen in
lem is further shown by her pres-Huld's remark that the officials
ent indifference to K.'s visit, for are children.10 The court and its
earlier she had been anxious to see officials exist in every life, in every
him. The mother, like the uncle, time and place. And K. comments
is part of K.'s mind, but the blind that "so many people seem to be
part, that which is suppressed: "die connected with the court."" The
Mutter hielt ihn sogar trotz aller Trial represents man's self-trial to
Widerrede fiir den Direktor der determine his success or failure in
Bank, und dies schon seit Jahren."8 the pursuit of an inner ideal. To
In another unfinished chapter claim, as critics have, that Kafka's
"Staatsanwalt" K. attributes to the books represent a specific theology,
early death of his father and thepsychology, or philosophy seems to
mistaken tenderness of his mother me to miss the point of Kafka's
a childish quality he possesses.'writing which was to embrace all
Thus despite her 'blindness' the quests without pointing to any one
mother is implicated in K.'s fate.as the way. The search for and
But the conscious recognition offollowing of an inner ideal is an
his mother remains in the back- old theme in literature put into
ground; for several years he had
words by innumerable writers, but
intended to visit her, but he had
Kafka's distinction seems to lie not
never done so, and the fragmentin his theme but in his technique
ends before the visit is made. which depends to a large extent on
That the characters are projec-his abrogation of the time values
tions of K.'s mind appears againof the outer world so that his odys-
in his interview with the advocate sey is described in terms of the
who at once knows all about K.'s inner world where in the final
case although, as K. reflects, thisanalysis all our odysseys take place.
advocate is attached to the court "You see, everything belongs to the
at the Palace of Justice, not to theCourt,"12 the painter tells K.-even
one with the skylight. As he pon- the girls on the stairs outside the
ders this incongruity the Chief painter's room. When Titorelli
Clerk of the Court (the one withopens the door behind his bed, K.
the skylight) appears in a cornerrecognizes the same Law-Court of-
of the room where K. had not fices even though the painter lives
noticed him. The link between in a different part of the city.
the two courts is thus inwardly es- "There are Law-Court offices in al-
tablished for K. The interview most every attic," Titorelli ex-
progresses and the advocate asks plains. "Why should this be an
K. no questions; he either talks of exception?"'8 And when Huld re-
his own affairs or strokes his beard. flects that "after a certain stage in
K. is, Kafka shows, his own advo- one's practice nothing new ever
cate and as such the facts are happens" he is expressing in differ-
known to him. K. learns that since ent terms the universal nature of
the proceedings are not public, the human quest.
legal records are inaccessible to The scene in the Cathedral
the accused and to his counsel-- should, therefore, not be interpret-
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ed to mean that the end of the ary."6 The reader fills in the emo-
tional content, the philosophical
quest is to be found in orthodoxy
of any kind. Rather the Cathedral
content, directed by symbols like
the beards of the assistants or the
symbolizes an inner spiritual goal
which has no relation for Kafka soft luxuriousness of the sleigh
to the Cathedral as such. cushions. Normal space and time
As K. nears the end of his questvalues are abrogated so that reality
in the Cathedral Square, he isis that which exists within the
startled by the recollection that
mind, not independent of it.
even when he was a child the cur- When K. returns to the inn early
tains in this square had been pulledin Chapter 2 of The Castle, he is
down. Inside the Cathedral he surprised to see that darkness has
watches the verger, whose limp setre-
in. "Had he been gone for such
minds him of his childhood imi- a long time? Surely not for more
tation of a man riding horseback. than an hour or two, by his reckon-
These two simple memories serve ing. And it had been morninlg
as touchstones of the world of ob- when he left."17 As in Kafka's
jects and of the "full-bodied rise short story "A Common Confu-
and fall" of life. As links their sion" the length of the trip does
not determine the time it takes.
existence in the passage is import-
ant, for through them Kafka Kafka re- does not write: "K.'s trip
minds us that his purpose is seemed
to to take a whole day." Ra-
mirror life, but a life disguisedther
so despite all of K.'s outward
that it is in the semblance of all reckonings, the inner time of the
lives.
subconscious mind prevails, and it
is actually dark when K. reaches
Clemens Heselhaus sums up the
the inn. The Castle is related in
question of reality in The Trial by
pointing out that the court itselfterms of the primitive, unreasoned
is not real; only the reactions ofdrives and evaluations of our un-
K. to this unreality are real. Be-conscious lives which for Kafka
cause the court is unreal all sup-are more real than what appears
positions are possible, but only onas the surface as distorted reflec-
suppositions, not as fixed truths.tions of these lives. Barnabas'
One cannot say that the court speed in outstripping K. is so great
means this or that. One can only that before K. can shout to him he
say that the physical realization has
of covered an impossible distance.
the court is made concrete in the Thus time again is observed
physical reactions and deeds whichthrough an unconscious estimate
destroy a life.'4 of it, and Barnabas is character-
ized in terms of a speed experience.
II.
Another insight into Kafka's ap-
proach to time comes when
Kafka's extraordinary use of sym-
bol, dream and parable'" reaches dragged
its on by Barnabas, K. re-
culmination in The Castle. Giin-
creates a scene from childhood
ther Anders writes that the strange
evoked by the difficulty of "keep-
element in K.'s experience is not
ing up." He finds himself by an
that so much strange happens, old
butchurch in a marketplace sur-
that nothing that happens, even
rounded by a graveyard, in turn
the self-evident, is self-evident. surrounded by a high wall. K. had
There is no distinction between failed to climb the wall until one
the ordinary and the extraordin- morning in an empty marketplace,
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flooded by sunlight, he had suc- pret our dieties in human terms,
ceeded. The sense of triumph of however, is shown by Kafka when,
that moment returns now to suc- for instance, Momus, the secretary,
cor him. Evoked by a chance ex-
crumbles salt and carroway seeds
on his paper.
perience, the past becomes present.
One notices that throughout The
Reality in the village is what the
Castle Kafka avoids measuring
people make it. Thus Klamm's ap-
time.'s For instance, when K. pearance
goes fluctuates. He looks one
to see the superintendent in Chap-
way in the village and another way
ter 5 there is no mention of how on leaving it. He looks different
many days or hours later thiswhen
visit he is awake from the way he
occurred after he left Frieda and
looks when he is asleep. On one
the landlady. Thus the reader is only all the villagers agree-
point
shocked to learn from Pepi athe wears always a black morning
the
end of the book that only fourcoat
dayswith long tails. The differ-
have elapsed since Frieda left her Kafka explains, are the re-
ences,
work at the bar. It is, of course, sult of the mood of the observer-
part of Kafka's technique to reveal of his degree of excitement, hope,
this only at the end where it does or despair. They are the varied
not distort his time values which impressions that the supplicant
are not of calendar or clock. That
holds of the features of the oracle,
the confessed of his confessor, or
the inner time of the mind prevails
in the book is suddenly provedthe
by patient of his psychoanalyst.
Pepi's remark which is incredible
The people's confusion of Momus
and Klamm and Barnabas' doubts
except on the level of idea. Earlier
about the real Klamm are also ex-
in the book to learn the day would
have only oriented us to conven-plained by Kafka's concept of real-
tional time values and spoiledity.the Likewise, in a passage deleted
effect of the allegory. But now by
thatKafka, K. feels as if Barnabas
hour and day have ceased to haveis two men whom only K., not out-
meaning, to be reminded of them side judgment, can keep distinct.
produces in the reader the sur- Barnabas, the messenger, and Bar-
prise that Kafka wishes to induce
nabas, the brother and son, do not,
so that they suddenly seem much therefore, ever really merge for the
more unreal than the flow of mind reader but remain, as for K., differ-
time in which the reader is im- ent, one of the castle, the other of
mersed. the village. This points to the real
Telephone calls to the castle are nature of the Barnabas symbol-
of no avail, for the superintendentthe man divided by having only
tells K. that all K.'s contacts with partially attained his goal. Reality
the castle have been illusory, "but depends then on the observer, not
owing to your ignorance of the on a set of unchanging values. Fe-
circumstances you take them tolix beWeltsch sees in these "Doppel-
real."'" All outside contact is il- wesen" a comic element. "Eine
lusion. K. mistakenly tries to Zweiheit,
use die also Einheit erkannt
human logic and reason in dealing wird, und eine Einheit, die immer
with the castle and its officials; wieder in Zweiheit zerfaillt."20
therefore, he and the officials never
The castle diginitaries have the
talk on the same level, for theirdistinction of being freed from
reasoning is incomprehensible to memory. Although K. challenges
the human mind. That we inter- the landlady's remark about
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Klamm's memory as "improbable are bound together indistinguish-
ably in the symbols and shadows
and indemonstrable," we are told
by Kafka that anyone whom of his dream world.2 As in a
Klamm "stops summoning he hasdream, all that goes on is known
forgotten completely, not only as at once by everyone in the village;
far as the past is concerned, butfor instance, the maids enter the
literally for the future as well."21room to move in with all their
K. himself has practically no past; clothes hardly after K. has spoken
we hear hardly anything of earlierthe words accepting the post at the
events in his life. The other char- school. The landlady is aware of
acters as well are without child- all that happens to K. as is every-
hood or ancestors. True, Frieda one K. meets. This disconcerting
claims a childhood acquaintance
state of affairs is further evidence
with Jeremiah with whom she of the dream atmosphere of the
book, for in a dream our enemies
played on the slope of the castle
hill, and K. accuses Frieda of hav- and friends alike know with uner-
ing succumbed to the influence ofring certitude all the hidden em-
memories, the past, in her "actualbarrassments and decisions of our
present-day life,"22 but for all prac-lives.2"
tical purposes there is no distant As the culmination of Kafka's
past in The Castle. With the ex-work, The Castle depicts general
themes: the alienation of man, the
ception of the story Olga tells K.
or the hints of the landlady's af-
incomprehensibility of the divine,
fair with Klamm, there is little the quest of the hero for the ful-
perspective in even the recent past. fillment of an ideal. Behind Kaf-
The larger racial past of the hu- ka's theme lies a concept of time
man species is, however, often im- based on the reality of idea which
plied in the allegory, for the sub- gives rise to his technique of par-
conscious level of the mind is, of able couched in a dream world.
course, much concerned with our Kafka's attitudes toward time and
primitive origins. Thus one sees,
reality alone make possible his
method of writing. Reality is of
for example, in the connection of
the villagers and K. to the castle
the mind; therefore the dream is
the bafflement of man in relation real and our ideas are real.
to forces of nature and in relation Kafka's emphasis on the dream
to deity. Kafka, however, seems world to and interest in an inner real-
imply that too much concern with ity spring from a great many sour-
the immediate and individual past ces.26 Primarily his whole attitude
clutters the mind, for the officials toward reality is deeply colored by
have no memory. It is well to note, his personal problems of adjust-
ment to life. His. relationships to
nevertheless, that it is only the offi-
cials who lack memory of a dis- his family, to the women to whom
missed case.23 The villagers and
he was engaged, to Milena were
K. do have memory, though itpainful
is ones. As a Jew his rela-
little exercised because The Castle tionship to the community was also
is written in the realm of dream an involved one. These unsolved
where the past is disguised and relationships
in- led to conflicts be-
tegrated with the present. tween the inner and the outer man,
Kafka probes deep by placing so that he eventually took cover in
his entire story on the unconscious
his writing behind the highly com-
level. For Kafka past and present
plicated screen of symbol and par-
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able as a refuge from the impinge- In The Castle we find Kafka's
ments of the world of action and dream world and his idea of truth.
events. Thus the doctrine of ideas
is for Kafka a successful defense. Purdue University

'Franz Kafka, The Great Wall of von aiusserster Abstraktion und Anony-
China, Stories and Reflections, trans. mitait;" Kahler writes. (p. 38)
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York, Although Kafka's work does have
1946), p. 267. many elements in common with the
2Franz Kafka, Der Prozess (Berlin, parable, I do not feel that this term
1935), p. 267. is sufficient to describe the technical
SFranz Kafka, The Trial, trans. complexity of the novels which include
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York, symbols within the parables and in
1937), p. 43. Quotations have been which the parable is often couched
taken from translations of the origin- in terms of the dream. Furthermore,
als when they were available. Kafka's parables lack the outspoken
4Der Prozess, p. 257. didactic purpose of most works in this
5Der Prozess, p. 272. form.
6The Trial, p. 69. "'Giinther Anders, Kafka Pro und
"The Trial, p. 113. Contra (Miinchen, 1951), p. 25.
8Der Prozess, p. 247. 17Franz Kafka, The Castle, trans.
9Der Prozess, pp. 253-254. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York,
x0The Trial, p. 154 1941), p. 23.
x The Trial, p. 170. 18For a discussion of Max Brod's ar-
12The Trial, p. 189. rangement of the material in The
x'The Trial, p. 206. Trial (one which may cast doubt also
"Clemens Heselhaus, "Kafkas Er- on his arrangements in The Castle)
see Hermann Uyttersprot, "Zur Struk-
zi'hlformen," Deutsche Vierteljahrs-
schrift fiir Literaturwissenschraft undtur von Kafkas 'Der Prozess', " Revue
Geistgeschichte, XXVI (1952), 353-des Langues Vivantes (1953), pp. 332-
376. 76.
x"Erich Kahler in his excellent dis- 1"The Castle, p. 95.
cussion of Kafka's technique in "Un- 20Felix Weltsch, Religidser Humor
tergang und Ubergang der epischenBei Franz Kafka (Winterthur, 1948),
Kunstform" (Neue Rundschau, LXIV p. 129.
(1953), 1-44) points out that Kafka's 21The Castle, p. 109.
stories move in a sphere which tran- 22The Castle, p. 325.
scends the senses. His characters live 23Some critics understand Kafka's
daydreams in which vision and specu-officials as our deities, for as Secretary
lation are one. Since by the symbolBurgel remarks, "We recognize no
thought is directed from the concretedifference between ordinary time and
working time." Edwin Muir sees in
to the abstract and by allegory thought
is directed from the abstract to the Kafka's world the influence of "Kier-
concrete, Kahler rejects both these kegaard's doctrine of incommensura-
terms as descriptive of Kafka's works.bility of divine and human law." "Ex-
He prefers to call them parables. "Diecerpts from Final Passages of 'The
modern Parabel spielt auf einer Ebene Castle'," trans. Sophie Prombaum in
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A Franz Kafka Miscellany: Pre-Fascist ment of German "poetic nihilism" Kaf-
Exile (New York, 1940), p. 80. And ka read and admired Grillparzer and
Edwin Muir "Franz Kafka" in A Stifter. He was especially interested
in Grillparzer's "Der arme Spielmann"
Franz Kafka Miscellany, p. 62.
with village
24The long winters in the its theme of a transcendant real-
lend an atmosphere of darkness ity for the artist and in Stifter's Der
fitting
to the dream. In fact, spring Nachsommer
and sum- in which the characters
mer seem to Pepi no longerare scarcely
than two more than incidental in
days. "Excerpts from Final thePassages
presenting of Stifter's idea of the
of 'The Castle' " in A Franz Kafka permanent character of truth. Further-
Miscellany, p. 94. more, he had read, Brod writes, Flau-
25Kafka's dream is overburdened by bert's The Temptation of St. Anthony
anxieties, for almost all of the vil- and A Sentimental Education. In both
of these books Flaubert's devotion to
lagers seem to be hostile, indifferent,
or fearful toward K. idea is strong. In fact, in the former
2Emphasis on an inner reality mayall movement is in the realm of the
he seen in many of the authors read spirit. The theme of a transcendant
by Kafka. In both the biography by reality may also be seen in Goethe,
Brod and the diaries Kafka's interest Kleist, and H61derlin, all of whom
in Plato is mentioned. In the move- Kafka read.

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