symposium by Nate Friend 02-08-00

1. Historical/ Political Context
1. Really shaped his writings
2. significance of WWI
1. technology was helping us become better people, but it caused so much destruction during the war
3. Kafka as a Jew in Prague
2. The plot
1. Joseph K was arrested without a reason
2. The irony is that it is a trial to get a trial
3. The text
1. Everything is really weird and unexpected
1. Inspector doesn’t know why he’s being arrested
1. Policemen are dressed like tourists
2. Court meets in a tenement building on a Sunday without a given time
1. Joseph K assumes on intuition what time he is to meet, and is 1:05 hours late
2. The room where he meets is unspecified
2. Draws on textual examples to put forward a metaphysically disordered universe
1. Joseph K meets with the court painter who says he can arrange things for him
1. Definite acquittal
2. Continuous intervention – acquitted, arrested, acquitted, arrested, etc.
3. Indefinite postponement – has to keep going with the trial and is never acquitted.
3. Shows the continuous deterioration of K
1. Before, he was so confident in himself, and trusted his intuition
1. It turned out his intuition was wrong when he was late to court
2. It all went downhill from there
2. K is constantly broken down by the law
4. Ethics from Metaphysics
1. People are also disordered (irrational) and cannot be trusted
1. Cathedral scene
1. Preacher is the prison chaplain
2. Initially is very nice to him but then grows colder
3. Leaves him in a dark hallway and doesn’t lead him to the exit
4. Even the preacher is unexpected
1. He doesn’t help K out of the darkness
2. Ethics is also random
3. The world is disordered and most of the time evil.