Summary Huld continues to emerge as a paradoxical character: he pretends to have influence with the higher-ups and yet pleads with K. not to dismiss him. He claims he loves to help him and would truly regret it if a “misunderstanding” forced him to withdraw his help (he cannot grasp […]

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Summary More than even the previous chapter, this one reveals the hierarchy of mediators and contact people with whose aid K. aspires to free himself. What Huld and Titorelli have in common is that they point to the invisible, inaccessible, highest Court without being able to help K. In their […]

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Summary K. is taken to the lawyer Huld by his obtrusive Uncle Karl (who greets his lawyer-friend by calling himself Albert), whose main worry is the shame his nephew is about to bring on the whole family by his involvement in a trial. A representative of the shallow bourgeois mentality, […]

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Summary The strange timeless and developmentless atmosphere of the world portrayed finds a most adequate expression in the title of this chapter, “The Whipper.” It stands out because it shows the continued repetition of the one event it deals with. Everything is reduced to certain fixed habits, a reflection of […]

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Summary The opening paragraphs make it clear that Fraulein Burstner is not going to grant K. his wish for another date. Her decision to move in with the pale and weakly Fraulein Montag is her precautionary step against possible advances on K.’s part. Speaking for her roommate, Fraulein Montag argues […]

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Summary K. does not show the slightest understanding of his situation. He is surprised and even irritated that the Court has evidently taken seriously his initial refusal to be tried and has, as a result, not issued a specific date for the next session with the authorities on a Sunday […]

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Summary The opening of the second chapter is ample proof that The Trial cannot be read literally as a reflection of political tyranny or even as a satire of such a system. There has never been a police state which made sure a defendant is rested before his interrogation, nor […]

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Summary If we look at the novel in terms of its opening sentence, we see that this sentence contains nothing but unproven assumptions: “Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” Until the end of the book, this atmosphere of […]

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Anna The maid who should have brought K. ‘s coffee the morning of his arrest. Assistant Manager K.’s superior at the Bank who becomes his adversary when the manufacturer complains about K. ‘s treatment of him. Bertold The student lover of the usher’s wife. He is a symbol of the […]

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Born in Prague in 1883, Franz Kafka is today considered the most important prose writer of the so-called Prague Circle, a loosely knit group of German-Jewish writers who contributed to the culturally fertile soil of Prague during the 1880s until after World War I. Yet from the Czech point of […]

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