Kafka's Parable of the Law in The Trial - Essay Example

Introduction 12 June Kafka's Parable of the Law in The Trial Kafka’s The Trial includes a parable of law that the priest narrates toK. This parable aims to enlighten K. about his circumstances and the futility of fighting for his innocence. In the article “Derrida on Kafka’s ‘Before the Law, ’” Foshay explores the parable of the law from Derrida’s analysis, where Derrida uses “the neologism differance” as a key to the deconstruction of the “material interdependence of difference and deferral” (199). The difference in spelling, but similarity in pronunciation with the word “difference,” stresses the dissimilarity and interconnection between the text and the reader. Deinert stresses that The Trial is both a parable and allegory of the law; it is a parable with faceless characters and a moral lesson, but it is also an allegory of the applicability of K.’s situation on everyone else. Mladek analyses the practices of self-observation of K. in understanding the cause and consequences of his arrest, but Lange argues that the law is “taboo” (86). Law is “desired” and “feared” simultaneously, because in reality, it is an “ambiguity” (Lange 86). This paper criticises the articles of the aforementioned authors. It shows that law in this book represents knowledge and its access according to Kafka will never be granted to anyone. Foshay uses Derrida’s analysis to deconstruct the parable of the law in Kafka’s The Trial, and he agrees with Derrida who argues that K. should interpret the parable of the law as the difference between the signified and the signified, the text and the reader, and the text and the writer. Derrida emphasises that people can only be “before the text” (Foshay 200). “We are before this text that, saying nothing de?nite and presenting no identi?able content beyond the story itself, except an endless differance, till death, nonetheless remains strictly intangible. Intangible: by this I understand inaccessible to contact, impregnable, and ultimately ungraspable, incomprehensible” (qtd. in Foshay 200). As a result, the priest is saying that K. should stop making assumptions about his innocence and determining whether who is right or wrong. Instead, he should read the law as it is: a parable and allegory that can only be glimpsed, but can never be fully accessed and used by anyone. I agree with Foshay and Derrida that the law is a text that is “impregnable, and ultimately ungraspable, incomprehensible” (qtd. in Foshay 200). When put in the context of K., he does not fully understand the suit against him, and yet he tries to manoeuvre some knowledge out of the uncanny events in his life. Still, it is hard to accept that as a text, law can be a body of knowledge that cannot be grasped and yet at the same time, each text is made for the specific audience. As the doorkeeper in the parable says: “This gate was made only for you. I am now going to close it.” For me, this means that the law is also a paradox. It is meant as a gateway to the truth of social justice, but at the same time, its knowledge cannot be used by anyone; it is only open to people who may need it. Derrida also notes the “structural ambiguity” (qtd. in Foshay 200) of the parable, which is why he concocted the word “differance” to prove his point. Derrida then, which I concur, analyses that the law is an oxymoron, because it is objective and subjective (qtd. in Foshay 200). Hence, no one can own and possess the text, even if it is supposedly made for the people. Only when people acknowledge it can there be true recognition of the knowledge of the law. Deinert, like Foshay, underlines that The Trial is both a parable and allegory of the law; it is a parable with faceless characters and a moral lesson, but it is also an allegory of the reality of K.’s situation as universal. Deinert stresses that the law, as a parable and text, is more of a process than a destination: “The fruitlessness of such a life is more important an aspect than the manner in which it is finally terminated.” Deinert reminds readers that the main theme of The Trial is frustration: “Whatever man undertakes is doomed to failure. Whatever he desires escapes him. Whatever he does to further his cause will be frustrated. Whatever, he has done was the wrong thing to do.” What is more frustrating is that all of K.’s efforts of accessing the law is “frustrated” too, says Deinert. This happens when K. puts a subjective interpretation of the law and the parable. Deinert calls this a “fallacy” where “...in doing so he super-imposes his own concepts on the narrative rather than concentrating on the text itself.” I agree that people should shed their subjectivity before the text, as Eliot also argues for in Foshay’s text (198). What is wrong, however, in having some sense of subjectivity, in interpreting the language of the law? When K. finds himself the object of the law’s application, he cannot help but analyse what the law means to him, when he finds himself innocent. I think that there is nothing wrong with subjectivity of interpretation of the law, as long as emotions do not cloud the rational process. K. lets his emotions rule when he says that the “doorkeeper cheated the man” (Kafka). This is what Deinert wants to avoid for both K. and the readers. The readers should also avoid being emotional in how K. is treated. When it comes to the law, Deinert asserts that the futility of grasping the law is inevitable, when it is made to be a text that is beyond the people’s understanding. If Deinert then focuses on this mode of shedding subjectivity, then it makes sense, because the whole process of accessing the law is pointless in The Trial. Mladek agrees that no one can access the law. K. can only “divine” the court proceedings, in the same way that he thinks he can bribe officials through women. Mladek says: “K.’s repeated acts of divining and his belief in a divine or superior guidance for his interpretative acts are informed by the long-standing hermeneutic tradition of divination since German romanticism” (226). But this will not do any good, since it does not matter what K. thinks of himself. By virtue of the law, its courts’ actions are “legitimate” (Mladek 233) and K. is only wasting effort to as he seeks to understand it and access the justice he thinks he deserves. This article from Mladek focuses more on the theatrical elements of the law. I believe he makes a good point about the spectatorship. It makes K. both the subject and object of the law. I agree with Mladek’s statement that “justice must also be seen” (234), which is what K. also wanted. K. wants to face the court and his accusers, which he never did. This makes the law as the justice that can be seen, only when it allows people to. This affirms the doorkeeper’s insistence in the parable that the man die without seeing the law for himself. Lange argues that the law is “taboo,” a text that cannot be fully accessed by the readers (86). As a taboo, law is “borderless” and “ambiguous” at the same time (Lange 86). I agree with these ambiguities that are inherent in law and Kafka’s story. Lange says: “The law is open yet inaccessible. And the man's desire is likewise suffered as both legitimate and impossible as attraction and repulsion” (87). As a result, the law conceals something, which can be a “door” to “trauma” (Lange 85). It is both refreshing and disconcerting to accept the reality of the “narrative impossibility” of the law (Lange 85). People can encounter the law as a text, but to fully understand it is impossible indeed, not just in K.’s case, but for people in general, because the law has its doorkeepers and people do not always have the means or knowledge or both to pass over these doorkeepers. My own critique matches what these authors just discussed. The law is knowledge, but no one can access it completely. It is the same with the parable of the law from the priest: “... It would seem, then, that it is no parable at all, that the very function of the narrative is cruelly to defeat the hope it had aroused” (Deinart). Knowledge of the law is frustrated for people wanting access to it. This is frustrating, because they cannot access the law which is supposed to serve them. Derrida says: “The text guards itself, maintains itself—like the law, speaking only of itself” (Foshay 201). I concur with these authors that the law speaks to itself, even when it is supposed to serve the people. It is, after all, a taboo that everyone may see or experience, but no one can fully use. What then is the purpose of the law for the people? The answer seems to be nothing at first. But then again, law is knowledge that opens to people too. For me, the law is something that can serve people’s purposes to some extent, but mostly for some kind of knowledge. But since the law is as faceless as K.’s accusers, it can never be fully understood as if it is a person. The law remains a text that cannot be understood, because it is a narrative of complexity and ambiguity, and to even try to understand it fully will only lead to utter frustration, and for me, this is also the lesson that The Trial seeks to impart about the law. Works Cited Deinert, Herbert. “Kafka's Parable Before The Law.” The Germanic Review (May 1964). Foshay, Raphael. “Derrida on Kafka’s ‘Before the Law.’” Rocky Mountain Review (2009): 194-206. Print. Kafka, Franz. The Trial. Web. 13 June 2011 < http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7849/pg7849.html>. Lange, Dirk G. “Before the Law: Doorkeeper of Trauma.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 41.2 (2008): 83-98. Print. Mladek, Klaus. “Radical Play: Gesture, Performance, and the Theatrical Logic of the Law in Kafka.” Germanic Review 78.3 (2003): 223-249. Print. Read More