Page 16 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
Criminal
Hasterer’s Court22 Secular Republican (?)
Inaccessible Guilt
Judge
Or Magistrate
The Priest- Prison- Chaplain (delivers verdict)
fired) (Titorelli ignored)
It is not just that The Trial’s Court is strictly criminal. It “reminds us of ecclesiastical hierarchies of intercession in which priests, angels and saints have the power to mediate between God and individual mortals,”24 but these hierarchies overlap the Old Testament’s priestly, prophetic and angelic hierarchies, and in so doing, they are also implicit in the Book of Job. In Job and Josef K’s realms, these intimations of absolutist moral regimes25 manifest themselves as real socio-political entities. In the Book of Job and The Trial, the High Court’s absolutism manifests itself socio-politically in Job’s sufferings, dispossessions, and loss of health, and in Josef K’s inexplicable arrest, persecution and brutal execution. In The Trial, a guiltless few 3⁄4 Titorelli, the Manufacturer, the Uncle 3⁄4 know the Court exists.26 Not only The Trial’s metaphysical airs ascend beyond social institutions of a Rechtsstaat (T9),27 but in crisscrossing the socio-political and the criminal, it pervades existence. It is not just that The Trial’s Court is solely metaphysical, or an existential principle exclusive of others,28 but that it crisscrosses the religious and socio-political- criminal dimension in its surveillance, persecution and execution of Josef K. Because both High Courts are religious-judicious and criminal, they belong to both political realms: the divine and earthly, the religious and political. Thus, their metaphysical absolutism arising in the heavens manifests itself socio-politically and criminally in the world, to test and overwhelm Job and Josef K.
23 T226-30.
22 K neglects calling his friend, Hasterer, the Public Prosecutor, after the Inspector questions its practical aim (T15), an incident that suggests the futility of making this call. About matters of Justice, once again, Josef K’s friends reiterate, just as Job’s three friends and Elihu remind Job, that it is best to stop worrying whether acts are just or not. Unlike Job, Josef K is a fantast; he is genuinely unaware of the corroding effects of omnipotence, and of the bureaucratic complexity of the judicial system (T15, 216, 219). Job’s utterances, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” (1:20-22), and “Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10), as early as Chapter 1 and 2, demonstrates he is aware of God’s omnipotence, and that he has an unshakable trust in him. While Job’s friends stress the munificent and creative aspect of Yahweh (5:10, 5:12 ff, 26:2-3, 26:5 ff), Job stresses the destructive aspect of Yahweh’s power (12). Unlike Job, K will know the Prosecutor’s destructive omnipotence at the end of his ordeal (T214).
24 Quoted from Dodd, in reference to Robertson 126ff, “on parallels with the practices of the ‘Wunderrabbis’ in the Eastern Jewish Communities.” In Robertson, Ritchie. Kafka. Judaism, Politics, and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. 87-130. Dodd adds that “Huld himself talks of ‘das oberste, für Sie, für mich und für uns alle ganz unerreichbare Gericht’ (T136), and elsewhere K reflects on ‘die Rangordnung und Steigerung des Gerichtes’, which is said to be ‘unendlich und selbst für den Eingeweihten nicht absehbar’” (T103). The page numbers cited on this footnote correspond to Kafka, Franz. Der Prozeß. Roman, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. New York: Schocken Books, 1979. See Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 34-5
25 Stern, J.P. “The Law of The Trial.” In F. Kuna (ed). On Kafka. Semi-Centenary Perspectives. London, 1976. 22-41
26 Titorelli, The Manufacturer and K’s uncle know about it. Titorelli inherits his knowledge of the Court from his father; he is also the Court’s portraitist. K’s
uncle learns about the trial from K’s niece, Erna, who learns about it from a bank employee; which suggests the Court is not an invention. Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 34
27 The wardens are “to stand guard over K ten hours a day and get paid for it,” though they are lowly, they know the higher authorities “inform themselves in great detail about the person they are arresting and the grounds for the arrest.” They know that their department “doesn’t seek out guilt among the general population, but, as the Law states, is attracted by guilt and has to send guards out. That’s the Law.” The general population suggests the secular population; those that do not recognize it. This affirms that K is tried religiously. K admits he does not know that Law and that it is in their heads. Willem, the other warden, says, “he doesn’t know the Law and yet he claims he is innocent” (T8-9). Warned that great demands will be placed upon him. They have advantage over K because they are free men.
28 Some scholars argue that the Court is strictly existential “which brings K up before the meaninglessness or the inauthenticity of his life...and the reification of a bad conscience.” (Dodd, 35). To Dodd, this reading is elegant in that it explains the Court’s corruption; however, its neatness is “suspicious and illusory” (Dodd, 35). Robertson warns against it “because it is almost too powerful: it risks becoming unfalsifiable and therefore to vacuous.” See Robertson, Ritchie. Kafka. Judaism, Politics, and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. 107. Dodd adds that the social dimension of the Court as “a reality independent of K and pre-existing him” is dissatisfying (Dodd, 35). Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 35
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