The Trial (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Franz Kafka
- First Published: 1925
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Symbolic realism
- Time of Work: Twentieth century
- Setting: Germany
- Genres: Long fiction, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: Justice, Prisoners, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, Surrealism, Alienation, Trials, Law or legislation, Symbolism, Germany or German people, Paranoia, Courts or courtrooms
- Locales: Germany
Characters Discussed
Joseph K., an employee in a bank. He is a man without particular qualities or abilities, a fact that makes doubly strange his “arrest” by the officer of the Court in the large city where K. lives. K.’s life is purely conventional and resembles the life of any other person of his class. Consequently, he tries in vain to discover how he has aroused the suspicion of the Court. His honesty is conventional; his sins, with Elsa the waitress, are conventional; and he has no striking or dangerous ambitions. He is a man without a face; at the most, he can only...
[The entire page is 925 words long]
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