Page 75 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
summer he had relaxed” (T228). The motif of the parting waters returns Josef K to the beauties of a beneficent divine presence that is immanent in the world: to the creation of the firmament as the waters are divided from the waters (Gen.1:6-7); to Moses parting the Red Sea (Ex.14:21-22), to Joshua, Elijah and Elisha parting the Jordan (Jos 3:15-17; 2 Kin 2:7-8; 2 Kin 2:13-14).
Just as the prophets in times of persecution must cross the waters, Josef K must too cross them. Yet for the prophets God lives and is present; for K, God is absent. Without God, his Judge, there is no salvation; there is no crossing towards liberty, safety and prosperity: only the cruelty of persecution and of death. If at the mere scent of water to Job a cut down or withered tree will bud anew and put forth branches like a young plant (14:7-9), there is no scent of waters near Josef K’s heath trees. In K’s will-bending spectacle, there is no air, only asphyxia; no wings for Icarus’ flight, only the will for melancholy and a recollection of a faint dream dressed in garlands of rosy-laureled utopias and a race for the goddess of justice vanishing during the moonlight.435 Gone were the days, the hours, and the once blossoming jovial garlands placed in the altars of Justice and dreams. Now they lay limp and withered in the grave of an absent Judge as if trampled agonies amidst soundless cascabeles. Only his cry of dereliction shall be heard in the nearing as an echo to Job of Jobel and to Christ of Golgotha, these the infinite laments heard over timelines heard in theheathsofdesolationandexile. FromEdentothePromisedLand,KmustcrossandpassthroughSinaitopurify himself and reclaim his immanent innocence.
In the heaths, the metaphysical gift, Imago Dei, is absent in the absence of beings. No one is left. In the penumbra, illumination departs. Only numberless setting suns are replicated in the numberless desolate heaths (T163). It is as if Satan had deceived everyone and everyone had banished from Eden beginning with The Fall of Man (Gen 3:3) moving onwards and onwards towards Job’s punishment, Josef K’s execution, and Christ’s crucifixion (had he not been justified by Saint Paul). Job, threatened by Satan from every side, feels the power of the desert loosed against him. He experiences catastrophes inflicted by man (1:15, 1:17), heaven (1:16), and the great whirlwind (1:19). K, threatened by the Prosecutor from every side, too, feels the power of chaos loosed against him. He experiences the power of injustice inflicted by man and by the Judge as if it was a great whirlwind sweeping him off the ground. When Job’s and K’s walls and doors are down, assault and catastrophe occur from every quarter.436 In both, the approaching darkness intimated in the heaths sets in, and terrors affright.437
Just as Titorelli’s sun sets in the desolate horizon towards darkness, so does humanism. There 3⁄4 darkness criss- crosses sin; nature, morality. If in the Book of Job the wicked, housed in the dark, rebel against the light (18:6), in the The Trial the scoundrels of the law, Job’s wicked, dwell in the dark. “The evildoers rebel against the light, they refuse to know its ways, and do not stay in its paths” (23:13-14). The Trial’s half-lit interiors, dark rooms and the cathedral are filled with lawyers, people, objects or figures that hide in corners suggesting “an atmosphere of menace and
435 This emblemizes K’s vision of a lady vanishing near the island-garden he sees on his way to his execution.
436 In the case of Job, please see the Book of Job 1:15-19; 2:5-7 and also the speeches from his friends, and Yahweh’s speeches to Job (37-41). In the case of Josef K, assault and terrors affright him from every quarter: at his bedroom (his inexplicable assault); at the Court of Inquiry (K’s panic at seeing the mocking and corrupt lawyers as one group, and their beards as claws); at the Court’s offices (nausea); his office (the Flogging, the fear of other employees’ and the Vice- President’s surveillance); at Huld’s office (the hidden Court Clerk, the words of Huld, the mistreatment of Block); at the cathedral (when the Priest calls Josef K!), and lastly, at the stone quarry. Please see The Trial 4, 52, 68-73, 80-7, 132-33, 139, 199, 165-98, 197-224, 225-231.
437 In the instance of Job, please see the Book of Job 6:3-4, 30:14-15, 30:16-17. In the instance of Josef K, please see The Trial 4, 52, 68-73, 80-7, 132-33, 139, 199, 165-98, 197-224, and 225-231.
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