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Galiet & Galiet
guilt of the accused in an incontrovertible fact ... insisting it is attracted by sin, von der Schuld angezogen, lending weight,” says Dodd, “it serves a higher, religious Truth.”93 Thus, Frau Grubach says Josef K’s trial appears to be ‘scholarly,’ yet confusing (T23). Thus, the usher’s wife says there is only one way and exit from the attics (T72). Thus, Leni says Josef K cannot defend himself against this Court; all he can do is confess (T106). Thus, Block says some defendants are deluded and too superstitious (T175). If Job has his agonies to bear; Josef K has his cross to bear (T109). Both suffer arbitrary punishments and dispossessions far exceeding their alleged sins of self-interested piety (Satan’s accusation against Job) and egocentrism (G•Scholars’ accusations against K). Because there are as many hints to the Court serving a moral Biblical Truth, as there are intimations of original sin, it is perplexing to think the Court is strictly secular, political and criminal.
But why are only some men accused, while others not, posits Dodd, and apparently all women are innocent?94 So again, we revisit The Trial’s Theatre of Twilight. If only some men are accused, it suggests the Court is strictly political. If all women are innocent, it advances they are innocent Eves, or that the Court is, in fact, strictly secular. In both instances, secular or religious, The Trial refutes the metanarrative of original sin, concurring with D•Scholars that Kafka radically subverts religious and moral edifices. The Trial’s Court 3⁄4 is a metaphysical and political and criminal entity. Its proceedings are corrupt and arbitrary. They interfere and aspire to dominate defendants permeating the social, political and criminal realms. In The Trial, as in the Book of Job, there is not only arbitrary arrest, but also arbitrary punishment. The Manufacturer’s comment to K, “everyone has his cross to bear,” “jeder hat sein Kreuz zu tragen” highlights the arbitrary distribution of punishment,95 as it occurred in the Sanhedrin’s trial of Jesus. Like Jesus’ arbitrary punishment, Job’s and Josef K’s high-handed dispossessions (Job) and execution (K) far exceed Satan’s and the Prosecutor’s inexplicable suspicions against blameless Job and flawed Josef K. “While there is clearly a sense in which The Trial can be seen as the work of an ethical and moral rigorist, the overriding tone... is one of profound ambivalence towards the Court, as if pained contemplation (rather than celebration) of its awful power.”96 Just as Job’s critique of Yahweh is a rebellion against theodicy and retributive justice, Josef K’s critique of the Court is a rebellion against a World Order, a Weltordnung, “ein großes Geschäft, wie er es schon oft mit Vorteil fur die Bank abgeschlossen hatte” (T109).97 If the Book of Job’s narrative positively invites a rebellious deconstruction, so does The Trial’s narrative structure invite “a subversive deconstruction,” says Dodd, “of idealist notions of ‘higher’ reality.”98 The transcendental temptation in The Trial “is rendered dubious,” says Dodd, “[if]... its absolutist powers are seen in secular terms.”99 In this secular and religious tension, the Court’s inhumanity and injustice is deeply disturbing.100 Thus, the ideological tension in The Trial is “crucially a contest between secular and transcendent interpretations of the world.”101 Thus, D•Scholars concur with Kafka’s ‘radical critique’ of ‘religious and moral systems,’102 and enthusiastically dismantle a la Derrida and a la Deleuze and Guattari, all transcendental justifications.
93 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 35
94 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 35
95 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 35
96 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 45
97 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 45
98 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 45
99 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 45
100 Dodd,William.DerProzess.Scotland:UniversityofGlasgowFrenchandGermanPublications,1991.39
101 Dodd,William.DerProzess.Scotland:UniversityofGlasgowFrenchandGermanPublications,1991.45-6
102 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 45. Footnote 42 refers to Deleuze and Guattari’s
work: Kafka. Fur eine kleine Literatur. Frankfurt, Munich, 1976. 71,or Kafka Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. By Dana Polan. Minneapolis: Minessota Press, 1986. 51
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