The conclusion of Kafka's The Trial

The end of Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1946, 3^rd edition; completed 1915, published posthumously 1925) is almost comic because of its sudden, abrupt conclusion to this complex, obsessive narrative. Up to this point, the novel consisted exclusively of the struggles Joseph K. goes through in response to his unexpected and unexplained arrest: He has no idea what transgression he may have committed, he is never informed about the progress of the case against him nor will he ever be, he gets conflicting advice from many sources, and his entire life is devoted to trying to get some kind of fair trial and justice and dismissal of the charges, which he is repeatedly warned will never and can never happen. The, in the final (and shortest) chapter, two strange characters – you can imagine them as the inspiration for Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon – with dispatch arrest Joseph, get him in a tight grip, and march him to a quarry at the city limits where they waste no time in shooting him death. Thus, justice is served. Neither we nor Joseph learn anything about the substance of his so-called crime nor about the process of adjudication that led to his execution. And that’s the point, of course: Life, Kafka seems to be saying, is a condition in which we are constantly under the burden of our sins, crimes, and misdemeanors; absolution is impossible because simply to be alive places us in a condition of constant adjudication, by and for ourselves, and by and for others (friends, neighbors, lovers, the state, a God). We the living neither receive nor deserve a “fair trial.” The system of justice is an absraction and bears no relationship to our internal life, our sufferings. There is no doubt that Kafka himself was deeply troubled, and not all readers will accept his verdict on the human condition – but there’s also no doubt that Kafka’s work feels more true and valid a century later, following the Holocaust and numerous crimes against humanity, following despotism and fascism in many countries including the supposedly “advanced,” than writers could have imagined a century ago. Kafka is an anomaly and an enigma – but also he was frightfully ahead of his time.