Time and Reality in Kafka's The Trial and The Castle

Author(s): Margaret Church

Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jul., 1956), pp. 62-69
Published by: Hofstra University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/440948 .
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 TIME AND REALITY
IN KAFKA'S THE TRIAL
AND THE CASTLE

MARGARET CHURCH

Kafka once wrote in an aphor- the same place that they were in
ism that one of his most import- the evening before.
ant wishes was "to attain a view On his first Sunday in court, K.
of life in which life, while still re- hurries to arrive at nine o'clock
taining its natural full-bodied rise "although he had not even been
and fall, would simultaneously be required to appear at any specified
recognized no less clearly as a noth- time."3 Despite the fact that he is
ing, a dream, a dim hovering."1 late he walks more slowly as he
This remark describes with some approaches the house of the exam-
accuracy the style and mood of his iners, as if now he had abundant
two central works The Trial and time. If anything, Kafka is more
The Castle and shows that it was adept at creating the dream than
Kafka's aim to employ in his fic- the "full-bodied rise and fall" of
tion the idea that time and space life. When K. leaves the examin-
are illusory. ing room, the magistrate mnyster-
The dreamlike quality of time iously gets to the door before him
values and the assumption of an as in a dream people appear at
interior time recognized alone by the beck and call of our fears and
the officials and K. appear through- wishes.
out The Trial. In a passage deleted In the unfinished chapter "Das
from the first chapter, Kafka had Haus" we find the curious juxta-
written that the riskiest moment position of dream upon dream. As
of the day is the moment when K. lies down on the couch in his
one awakes. "Man ist doch im office, his thoughts hover between
Schlaf und im Traum wenigstens dream and reality, only here reali-
scheinbar in einem von Wachen ty is that of K.'s waking life which
wesentlich verschiedenen Zustand is often like a dream to the reader.
gewesen."2 Because K. this morning Thus Kafka makes us aware of
has found his world different from various levels of reality-the dream
the way it was the evening before, within the dream. K's first dream
we understand that part of the represents his alienated situation
dream world has intruded into his as he views Frau Grubach's board-
everyday world. The opening of ers, many unknown to him, for he
"The Metamorphosis" may be had for some time not bothered
compared with that of The Trial himself about concerns of the
where Kafka writes that it takes house. Then as he turns from the
great vigilance to see things in group and hurries into the law
62
 court, corridors and rooms become Time has not moved on this level
familiar "als waren sie seine Woh- of experience although K. has
nung seit jeher."4 As K. becomes lived through a whole day of clock
more deeply implicated in the time. K. deals with this situation
court, the details of living lose in the realm of action by asking
for him their significance, the the clerks to clear out the lumber
dream becomes more like the inner room the next day although un-
dream. consciously he recognizes that his
In connection with the dream it experience is an inner one, for he
should be noted that K. is often would not ask them to do this if
"in the dark." Heavy curtains he thought that the whipper and
hang over the windows in the ad- the warders were there for the
vocate's bedroom; in the cathedral clerks to see. It is K.'s fault that
K. by mistake extinguishes his lamp the warders are being whipped,
and "Er blieb stehen, es war ganz thus the scene represents hidden
dunkel, er wusste gar nicht, an guilt. He asks the clerk to clear it
welcher Stille der Kirche er sich out knowing that he cannot re-
befand."5 In this dream world one move the imprint of the scene
loses one's bearings; and since K. froln his mind other than by the
is lost inwardly, his physical rela- destruction of its outward symbols.
tion to objects and places is an Time has stood still in this back
uncertain one, too. room of K.'s consciousnss, a trick
When the student enters the ex- made possible by Kafka's concept
aming room where K. stands alone of the idea of time as reality.
with the woman who occupies the The appearance of K.'s uncle and
apartment outside, K. experiences the mention of his daughter, Erna,
his first meeting with a representa- is one of the few insights we have
tive of the official group on human into K.'s past. K.'s uncle under-
terms as a rival.' This meeting stands, without being told, the
implies the recognition that the facts of K.'s case. K. is aware that
trial is on a different level from he has known all along that his
"the full-bodied rise and fall." lncle would turn up, for the uncle,
Neverthelss, it is interesting to like the rest of the characters in
note that the meeting takes place the book, has reality only in re-
in the same examining room where lation to K.'s inner life. As a
K. had had his first hearing. Kafka molder of K.'s past, the uncle, too,
thus creates a link between the like the family of Amalia in The
two worlds (inner and outer), a Castle, is implicated. The uncle is
link which gives artistic unity to part of the everlasting present of
the passage. K.'s mind time, neither past nor
A scene in the lumber room7 in present having reality except as
the bank leads to further insights they are viewed by K. The Pla-
into the time experience in The tonic character of Kafka's idea of
Trial. When K. returns to the time is clear when we observe that
lumber room on the second eve- K. (as the initial suggests) is a
ning, he finds everything exactly symbol, not an individual, so we
as he had left it the night before. are dealing here not with a specific
The whipper is still standing in relationship of past and present
the same position in front of the but with a general one.
warders. As K. opens the door, In the uncompleted chapter
the warders at once cry out. "Sirl" "Fahrt zu Mutter" we find the
63
same general relation between past
and present. K.'s mother is almost
blind, so unlike the uncle, she is
ignorant of K.'s plight. Her re-
fusal to be implicated in K.'s prob-
lem is further shown by her pres-
ent indifference to K.'s visit, for
earlier she had been anxious to see
him. The mother, like the uncle,
is part of K.'s mind, but the blind
part, that which is suppressed: "die
Mutter hielt ihn sogar trotz aller
Widerrede fur den Direktor der
Bank, und dies schon seit Jahren."8
In another unfinished chapter
"Staatsanwalt" K. attributes to the
early death of his father and the
mistaken tenderness of his mother
a childish quality he possesses.9
Thus despite her 'blindness' the
mother is implicated in K.'s fate.
But the conscious recognition of
his mother remains in the back-
ground; for several years he had
intended to visit her, but he had
never done so, and the fragment
ends before the visit is made.
That the characters are projec-
tions of K.'s mind appears again
in his interview with the advocate
who at once knows all about K.'s
case although, as K. reflects, this
advocate is attached to the court
at the Palace of Justice, not to the
one with the skylight. As he pon-
ders this incongruity the Chief
Clerk of the Court (the one with
the skylight) appears in a corner
of the room where K. had not
noticed him. The link between
the two courts is thus inwardly es-
tablished for K. The interview
progresses and the advocate asks
K. no questions; he either talks of
his own affairs or strokes his beard.
K. is, Kafka shows, his own advo-
cate and as such the facts are
known to him. K. learns that since
the proceedings are not public,
legal records are inaccessible to
the accused and to his counsel-
64
records of earlier acts which in life
are often inaccessible because
pressed into the unconscious. That
this unconscious level is unreason-
able and primitive is seen in
Huld's remark that the officials
are children.10 The court and its
officials exist in every life, in every
time and place. And K. comments
that "so many people seem to be
connected with the court."" The
Trial represents man's self-trial to
determine his success or failure in
the pursuit of an inner ideal. To
claim, as critics have, that Kafka's
books represent a specific theology,
psychology, or philosophy seems to
me to miss the point of Kafka's
writing which was to embrace all
quests without pointing to any one
as the way. The search for and
following of an inner ideal is an
old theme in literature put into
words by innumerable writers, but
Kafka's distinction seems to lie not
in his theme but in his technique
which depends to a large extent on
his abrogation of the time values
of the outer world so that his odys-
sey is described in terms of the
inner world where in the final
analysis all our odysseys take place.
"You see, everything belongs to the
Court,"'2 the painter tells K.-even
the girls on the stairs outside the
painter's room. When Titorelli
opens the door behind his bed, K.
recognizes the same Law-Court of-
fices even though the painter lives
in a different part of the city.
"There are Law-Court offices in al-
most every attic," Titorelli ex-
plains. "Why should this be an
exception?"'1 And when Huld re-
flects that "after a certain stage in
one's practice nothing new ever
happens" he is expressing in differ-
ent terms the universal nature of
the human quest.
The scene in the Cathedral
should, therefore, not be interpret-
ed to mean that the end of the ary.16The reader fills in the emo-
quest is to be found in orthodoxy tional content, the philosophical
of any kind. Rather the Cathedral content, directed by symbols like
symbolizes an inner spiritual goal the beards of the assistants or the
which has no relation for Kafka soft luxuriousness of the sleigh
to the Cathedral as such. cushions. Normal space and time
As K. nears the end of his quest values are abrogated so that reality
in the Cathedral Square, he is is that which exists within the
startled by the recollection that mind, not independent of it.
even when he was a child the cur- When K. returns to the inn early
tains in this square had been pulled in Chapter 2 of The Castle, he is
down. Inside the Cathedral he surprised to see that darkness has
watches the verger, whose limp re- set in. "Had he been gone for such
minds him of his childhood imi- a long time? Surely not for more
tation of a man riding horseback. than an hour or two, by his reckon-
These two simple memories serve ing. And it had been molnilig
as touchstones of the world of ob- when he left."17 As in Kafka's
jects and of the "full-bodied rise short story "A Common Confu-
and fall" of life. As links their sion" the length of the trip does
existence in the passage is import- not determine the time it takes.
ant, for through them Kafka re- Kafka does not write: "K.'s trip
minds us that his purpose is to seemed to take a whole day." Ra-
mirror life, but a life disguised so ther despite all of K.'s outward
that it is in the semblance of all reckonings, the inner time of the
lives. subconscious mind prevails, and it
Clemens Heselhaus sums up the is actually dark when K. reaches
question of reality in The Trial by the inn. The Castle is related in
pointing out that the court itself terms of the primitive, unreasoned
is not real; only the reactions of drives and evaluations of our un-
K. to this unreality are real. Be- conscious lives which for Kafka
cause the court is unreal all sup- are more real than what appears
positions are possible, but only as on the surface as distorted reflec-
suppositions, not as fixed truths. tions of these lives. Barnabas'
One cannot say that the court speed in outstripping K. is so great
means this or that. One can only that before K. can shout to him he
say that the physical realization of has covered an impossible distance.
the court is made concrete in the Thus time again is observed
physical reactions and deeds which through an unconscious estimate
destroy a life.l4 of it, and Barnabas is character-
ized in terms of a speed experience.
II. Another insight into Kafka's ap-
Kafka's extraordinary use of sym- proach to time comes when
bol, dream and parable'1 reaches its dragged on by Barnabas, K. re-
culmination in The Castle. Gun- creates a scene from childhood
ther Anders writes that the strange evoked by the
difficulty of
element in K.'s experience is not ing up." He finds himself "keep- by an
that so much strange happens, but old church in a marketplace sur-
that nothing that happens, even rounded by a
graveyard, in turn
the self-evident, is self-evident. surrounded by a high wall. K. had
There is no distinction between failed to climb the wall until one
the ordinary and the extraordin- morning in an
empty marketplace,
65
flooded by sunlight, he had suc-
ceeded. The sense of triumph of
that moment returns now to suc-
cor him. Evoked by a chance ex-
perience, the past becomes present.
One notices that throughout The
Castle Kafka avoids measuring
time.18 For instance, when K. goes
to see the superintendent in Chap-
ter 5 there is no mention of how
many days or hours later this visit
occurred after he left Frieda and
the landlady. Thus the reader is
shocked to learn from Pepi at the
end of the book that only four days
have elapsed since Frieda left her
work at the bar. It is, of course,
part of Kafka's technique to reveal
this only at the end where it does
not distort his time values which
are not of calendar or clock. That
the inner time of the mind prevails
in the book is suddenly proved by
Pepi's remark which is incredible
except on the level of idea. Earlier
in the book to learn the day would
have only oriented us to conven-
tional time values and spoiled the
effect of the allegory. But now that
hour and day have ceased to have
meaning, to be reminded of them
produces in the reader the sur-
prise that Kafka wishes to induce
so that they suddenly seem much
more unreal than the flow of mind
time in which the reader is im-
mersed.
Telephone calls to the castle are
of no avail, for the superintendent
tells K. that all K.'s contacts with
the castle have been illusory, "but
owing to your ignorance of the
circumstances you take them to be
real."'9 All outside contact is il-
lusion. K. mistakenly tries to use
human logic and reason in dealing
with the castle and its officials;
therefore, he and the officials never
talk on the same level, for their
reasoning is incomprehensible to
the human mind. That we inter-
66
pret our dieties in human terms,
however, is shown by Kafka when,
for instance, Momus, the secretary,
crumbles salt and carroway seeds
on his paper.
Reality in the village is what the
people make it. Thus Klamm's ap-
pearance fluctuates. He looks one
way in the village and another way
on leaving it. He looks different
when he is awake from the way he
looks when he is asleep. On one
point only all the villagers agree-
he wears always a black morning
coat with long tails. The differ-
ences, Kafka explains, are the re-
sult of the mood of the observer-
of his degree of excitement, hope,
or despair. They are the varied
impressions that the supplicant
holds of the features of the oracle,
the confessed of his confessor, or
the patient of his psychoanalyst.
The people's confusion of Momus
and Klamm and Barnabas' doubts
about the real Klamm are also ex-
plained by Kafka's concept of real-
ity. Likewise, in a passage deleted
by Kafka, K. feels as if Barnabas
is two men whom only K., not out-
side judgment, can keep distinct.
Barnabas, the messenger, and Bar-
nabas, the brother and son, do not,
therefore, ever really merge for the
reader but remain, as for K., differ-
ent, one of the castle, the other of
the village. This points to the real
nature of the Barnabas symbol-
the man divided by having only
partially attained his goal. Reality
depends then on the observer, not
on a set of unchanging values. Fe-
lix Weltsch sees in these "Doppel-
wesen" a comic element. "Eine
Zweiheit, die also Einheit erkannt
wird, und eine Einheit, die immer
wieder in Zweiheit zerfallt."20
The castle diginitaries have the
distinction of being freed from
memory. Although K. challenges
the landlady's remark about
Klamm's memory as "improbable are bound together indistinguish-
and indemonstrable," we are told ably in the symbols and shadows
by Kafka that anyone whom of his dream world.24 As in a
Klamm "stops summoning he has dream, all that goes on is known
forgotten completely, not only as at once by everyone in the village;
far as the past is concerned, but for instance, the maids enter the
literally for the future as well."21 room to move in with all their
K. himself has practically no past; clothes hardly after K. has spoken
we hear hardly anything of earlier the words accepting the post at the
events in his life. The other char- school. The landlady is aware of
acters as well are without child- all that happens to K. as is every-
hood or ancestors. True, Frieda one K. meets. This disconcerting
claims a childhood acquaintance state of affairs is further evidence
with Jeremiah with whom she of the dream atmosphere of the
played on the slope of the castle book, for in a dream our enemies
hill, and K. accuses Frieda of hav- and friends alike know with uner-
ing succumbed to the influence of ring certitude all the hidden em-
memories, the past, in her "actual barrassments and decisions of our
present-day life,"22but for all prac- lives.25
tical purposes there is no distant As the culmination of Kafka's
past in The Castle. With the ex- work, The Castle depicts general
ception of the story Olga tells K. themes: the alienation of man, the
or the hints of the landlady's af- incomprehensibility of the divine,
fair with Klamm, there is little the quest of the hero for the ful-
perspective in even the recent past. fillment of an ideal. Behind Kaf-
The larger racial past of the hu- ka's theme lies a concept of time
man species is, however, often im- based on the reality of idea which
plied in the allegory, for the sub- gives rise to his technique of par-
conscious level of the mind is, of able couched in a dream world.
course, much concerned with our Kafka's attitudes toward time and
primitive origins. Thus one sees, reality alone make possible his
for example, in the connection of method of writing. Reality is of
the villagers and K. to the castle the mind; therefore the dream is
the bafflement of man in relation real and our ideas are real.
to forces of nature and in relation Kafka's emphasis on the dream
to.deity. Kafka, however, seems to world and interest in an inner real-
imply that too much concern with ity spring from a great many sour-
the immediate and individual past ces.2 Primarily his whole attitude
clutters the mind, for the officials toward reality is deeply colored by
have no memory. It is well to note, his personal problems of adjust-
nevertheless, that it is only the offi- ment to life. His relationships to
cials who lack memory of a dis- his family, to the women to whom
missed case.23 The villagers and he was engaged, to Milena were
K. do have memory, though it is painful ones. As a Jew his rela-
little exercised because The Castle tionship to the community was also
is written in the realm of dream an involved one. These unsolved
where the past is disguised and in- relationships led to conflicts be-
tegrated with the present. tween the inner and the outer man,
Kafka probes deep by placing so that he eventually took cover in
his entire story on the unconscious his writing behind the highly com-
level. For Kafka past and present plicated screen of symbol and par-
67
able as a refuge from the impinge- In The Castle we find Kafka's
ments of the world of action and dream world and his idea of truth.
events. Thus the doctrine of ideas
is for Kafka a successful defense. Purdue University

'Franz Kafka, The Great Wall of von iusserster Abstraktion und Anony-
China, Stories and Reflections, trans. mitat;" Kahler writes. (p. 38)
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York, Although Kafka's work does have
1946), p. 267. many elements in common with the
2Franz Kafka, Der Prozess (Berlin, parable, I do not feel that this term
1935), p. 267. is sufficient to describe the technical
SFranz Kafka, The Trial, trans. complexity of the novels which include
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York, symbols within the parables and in
1937), p. 43. Quotations have been which the parable is often couched
taken from translations of the origin- in terms of the dream. Furthermore,
als when they were available. Kafka's parables lack the outspoken
4Der Prozess, p. 257. didactic purpose of most works in this
5Der Prozess, p. 272. form.
6The Trial, p. 69. '6Giinther Anders, Kafka Pro und
7The Trial, p. 113. Contra (Miinchen, 1951), p. 25.
8Der Prozess, p. 247. '7Franz Kafka, The Castle, trans.
9Der Prozess, pp. 253-254. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York,
'0The Trial, p. 154 1941), p. 23.
"The Trial, p. 170. '8For a discussion of Max Brod's ar-
12The Trial, p. 189. rangement of the material in The
'8The Trial, p. 206. Trial (one which may cast doubt also
"4Clemens Heselhaus, "Kafkas Er- on his arrangements in The Castle)
ziihlformen," Deutsche Vierteljahrs- see Hermann Uyttersprot, "Zur Struk-
schrift fur Literaturwissenschraft und tur von Kafkas 'Der Prozess'," Revue
Geistgeschichte, XXVI (1952), 353- des Langues Vivantes (1953), pp. 332-
376. 76.
"5Erich Kahler in his excellent dis- '1The Castle, p. 95.
cussion of Kafka's technique in "Un- 20Felix Weltsch, Religioser Humor
tergang und Ubergang der epischen Bei Franz Kafka (Winterthur, 1948),
Kunstform" (Neue Rundschau, LXIV p. 129.
(1953), 1-44) points out that Kafka's 2'The Castle, p. 109.
stories move in a sphere which tran- 22The Castle, p. 325.
scends the senses. His characters live 23Some critics understand Kafka's
daydreams in which vision and specu- officials as our deities, for as Secretary
lation are one. Since by the symbol Burgel remarks, "We recognize no
thought is directed from the concrete difference between ordinary time and
to the abstract and by allegory thought working time." Edwin Muir sees in
is directed from the abstract to the Kafka's world the influence of "Kier-
concrete, Kahler rejects both these kegaard's doctrine of incommensura-
terms as descriptive of Kafka's works. bility of divine and human law." "Ex-
He prefers to call them parables. "Die cerpts from Final Passages of 'The
modern Parabel spielt auf einer Ebene Castle'," trans. Sophie Prombaum in

68
A Franz Kafka Miscellany: Pre-Fascist
Exile (New York, 1940), p. 80. And
Edwin Muir "Franz Kafka" in A
Franz Kafka Miscellany, p. 62.
24The long winters in the village
lend an atmosphere of darkness fitting
to the dream. In fact, spring and sum-
mer seem to Pepi no longer than two
days. "Excerpts from Final Passages
of 'The Castle'" in A Franz Kafka
Miscellany, p. 94.
25Kafka'sdream is overburdened by
anxieties, for almost all of the vil-
lagers seem to be hostile, indifferent,
or fearful toward K.
2Emphasis on an inner reality may
he seen in many of the authors read
by Kafka. In both the biography by
Brod and the diaries Kafka's interest
in Plato is mentioned. In the move-
69
ment of German "poetic nihilism" Kaf-
ka read and admired Grillparzer and
Stifter. He was especially interested
in Grillparzer's "Der arme Spielmann"
with its theme of a transcendant real-
ity for the artist and in Stifter's Der
Nachsommer in which the characters
are scarcely more than incidental in
the presenting of Stifter's idea of the
permanent character of truth. Further-
more, he had read, Brod writes, Flau-
bert's The Temptation of St. Anthony
and A Sentimental Education. In both
of these books Flaubert's devotion to
idea is strong. In fact, in the former
all movement is in the realm of the
spirit. The theme of a transcendant
reality may also be seen in Goethe,
Kleist, and Holderlin, all of whom
Kafka read.