Webology (ISSN: 1735-188X) Volume 18, Number 6, 2021
Franz Kafka’s The Trial As A Critique Of Bureaucratic System Upasana Handique1 , Dristi Dhekial Phukan2 1
2
M.A in English Tezpur University.
M.A. in English Dibrugarh University.
Abstract: In his remarkable work The Trial, Franz Kafka tries to draw the crisis of modern man. This novel chiefly portrays the surreal and an absurd nature of the legal world that arrests Joseph K for something; but for what exactly, nobody knows. Throughout the novel, K has been watched over or in a way under constant surveillance. However, the readers do not find any physically tangible force like bureaucracy but, we cannot deny its presence. Moreover, one can compare the condition of Joseph K with the notion of Benthamian panopticon. In The Trial, the bureaucratic apparatus is just like a panopticon, which constantly keeps under its surveillance. Keywords: Franz Kafka, crisis, modern man, surreal, absurd, legal world, surveillance, bureaucratic apparatus, panopticon. INTRODUCTION Bureaucracy originated within the capitalist culture of the late ninetieth century Europe which started to govern all human beings. It served to fulfill some social requirements but, slowly started to dictate the lives of human beings. Bureaucracy is excessively complicated administrative procedure. It promoted its own mentalities, its rationalities, its own techniques to control people. Human beings are part of a system which overpowered them, which resulted in a great psychological depression. Franz Kafka’s remarkable work, The Trial chiefly deals with the crisis of modern man. During his lifetime, Kafka worked in insurance companies which made him experimentally and intellectually aware of the fact that humans are the slaves of modern bureaucratic system. However, in The Trial bureaucracy is somewhat invisible as the readers are not able to know who operates the whole system and it is impossible to defeat this authoritative power. The Trial chronicles the surreal and an absurd nature of the legal world, which arrests Joseph K. for something; but for what exactly, nobody knows. The two warders, come to arrest K. but this 3397
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