Justice and Injustice by Kafka’s The Trial and Bretch’s the Threepenny Opera
Kafka’s The Trial is often critically assessed as an unfinished novel that presents the searching for divine justice. The divine justice in Kafka’s work mirrors on two levels; the first level is the helplessness that people endure while in conflict with the existing bureaucratic systems, as the second level is the existential dilemma that occurs in the life of a man before the hostile, godless, and indifferent universe. Primarily, Kafka presents a distorted form of the judicial domain, especially the trial process, which imposes ambiguity to a significant extent.
Kafka’s short story presents a character, Josef K, finds himself on the wrong side of a mysterious legal system one morning. Josef K gets arrested over a crime unnamed and which he does not even know its whereabouts. The novels outline how the accused attempts on several occasions to find justice from a judicial system that is full of injustice. Kafka faces frustrations, complete loss of dignity, and, finally, a cruel death that occurs through stabbing.
Kafka outlines a horrifying image of functioning attorneys within a despotic, tyrannical, and vague justice domain. The lawyers are not allowed to present themselves during interrogation. The judicial system limited access by the attorney to the accused in terms of inquiry findings, evidence, and case documents. Josef K, as well as his attorney, are not granted the chance to see the charges. Besides, K.s attorney Huld is sickly and grows weaker daily as he meets him in his bedroom. The situation gives the accused little hope that the attorney will represent him to a full term in a competent manner. The attorney also confirms that the court system is mysterious and attests that “the most important thing was counsel’s connection with the officials of the court; in that lay the chief value of the defense.”(110). Upon Josef K attempt to relinquish the lawyer’s services, he provides summon to his other client, Blocks, with an elaborate humiliation. The degradation that Block receives from the attorney shocks K who realizes that Huld wields over clients in an attempt to impress the new ones. The despotic nature of the court systems, and the hypocrisy in attorneys, appears vividly in the novel. Since neither the accused nor the attorney knows the crime within their midst, the attorney lacks the idea of procedures to be utilized in court proceedings. As such, Burns argues that the Advocate aims to exploit clients who require knowledge of the court systems for his selfish gains (127). The novel presents a clear picture of injustice to advocate by humiliating their dignity as well as the accused that faces court charges for crimes they have not committed.
The court system that Kafka presents in his, The trial outlines a sense of ambiguity and hopelessness by Inspectors. When the prison warders give information to K. that he can meet and have a chat with the inspector, the accused feels hopeful in the sense that he will be able to receive the answers for the questions he has been asking himself regarding his case. Unfortunately, his hopes become thwarted immediately the inspector responds that he is unable to say anything, except that he was arrested and that protesting about his innocence is useless. The inspector makes a statement that provides a picture that petty officers are entirely functionaries tasked with following orders and justifying their roles without attempting to understanding or understanding the motives of the higher officials within the judicial system. The inspector asserts;
“These gentlemen here and myself have no standing whatever in this affair of yours. Indeed we know hardly about it … I can’t even confirm that you are charged with an offense, or rather, I don’t know whether you are. You are under arrest. Certainly, more than that, I do not know”. (16)
As can be seen, K is detained, but that will not prevent him from articulating his businesses or leading a healthy life (Clegg et al. 161). However, Ks private life is under destruction due to his dangle between the banks and the court. Moreover, it is a strange moment when k is arrested but allowed to move around under unhampered routine life, yet Huld informs K that the freedom that K receives is due to a meticulous plan to frame him using unnamed crime. As such, it is clear that the justice system is responsible for the detention of an innocent individual, which is unjust, when clearly; the main objective of the system is to provide justice.
Mockery by the Magistrates during K.’s first hearing is a form of injustice that the accused undergoes when he requires justice the most. Within the interrogation desk, Kafka satirizes the loopholes within the legal arena, the incompetent judges, as well as the fallacies within the legal proceedings. After meeting the inspector and warders, K undergoes an examination by the magistrate. The scene presents a dream-like quality full of unrealities. The tenement’s top floor is a backroom of a low-income family. Immediately K arrives at the scene; the magistrate rebukes him, stating that he is one hour late.
Further, the magistrates tell K that he cannot conduct his hearing at the moment since hearing time is over. Despite agreeing to hear the case later after issuing a stern warning at the accused asserting that such lateness is intolerable soon, there exists clarity that the magistrate lacks any insight regarding the case. The element is evident when the magistrate poses a question to K, “You are a house painter” (39). Later, K discovers that the law books before the magistrate are pornographic materials that make the accused look as if his trial is a symbol of a terrible joke. K then sums up the impression by the justice systems that “Behind it all, there is a great organization at work, which employs corrupt warders, oafish inspectors and examining magistrate of whom the best can be said that they recognize their limitations” (45). The ordeal creates an image of a justice system with rampant corruption. It employs callout and inhuman officials who performs all kind of injustices including robbing people their close during their arrest.
The Threepenny Opera by Brecht
In the short story, Brecht exposes the evil nature of capitalism comprehensively and openly. The primary aim of the author was to remove a misconception which the giants in the corporate system, the white-collared industrialists, and the bankers can never exploit people; indulge in immoral and criminal behaviors. Brecht aspired to do a separation between the unjust association of slum-dwellers and poor people with criminals that Kafka puts forward in the justice system (magistrate, lawyers, etc.). Unlike Kafka in his The Trial, Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera focuses on showing that the “gentlemen” or rather the bourgeoisie are rouges in the real sense.
Characters in the Threepenny Opera choose survival to exist instead of the survival of humanity. Macheath is among the characters who have taken personal decisions on dealing with societal issues. The character vents in a song, “What use is the freedom? None, to judge from this / One must live well to know what living is (48). It is easy to deduce that the characters think that living in the form of knowledge with simplicity is freedom in a way, although such a culture does not satisfy his desires. Moreover, the author illustrates the life of poor writers, how they get chilly cold during the night, although still dreams of progressing as they wait for publishing of their stories in a paper. The author then questions about who may prefer that type of life. Hence, Macheath makes a conscious choice of leading the life of “‗empty of ethics’, but ‗full the belly.’ Michael asserts that;
Suffering ennobles, but it can depress also
The paths of glory lead but to the grave
… The search for happiness boils down to this;
One must live well to know what living is. (49)
The character dispute the interpretations which assert that suffering is inevitable and expresses a sense of surprise to the notion that poor people cannot direct their faces towards the unjust situation that exists within their vicinity. According to him, the poverty of humankind is an artificial element, not a natural phenomenon. He chooses to have a full belly instead of starving due to his helplessness. The author uses Macheath to raise questions on the modern world’s predicament. Brecht points on the consequences of the social system and their just ways under capitalism. He then blames the capitalist system, which has forced people to stray from their only self and adopt their unjust deeds as a way of defending themselves from helplessness.
Bretch points out the contradictions that class conciseness create in the society in regards to how they treat the poor as well as the rich. The author outlines that Macheath, who serves as the exploiters in the petit-bourgeois, receives a pardon from the Queen. According to Brecht and Bentley, the reality of life is that individuals grouped as the poorest of all encounters fates, which are quite severe (178). Peachum asserts that “Saviours on horseback are seldom met with in practice” (82). According to him, the bourgeois villains receive forgiveness of their crimes when the poor meet harsh punishments. The contradiction is an injustice act which the capitalist world inflicts on the poor. Within the systems, Peachum ironically requests that “people should avoid being harsh on injustices as Injustice should be spared from persecution: / Soon it will freeze to death, for it is cold‖” (82). The irony by the character justifies the passivity and silence which the people maintain, yet the society portrays a great sense of injustice. At the same time, they should call for action against the system. Peachant’s ironic sentiments mean that there is a need to take effect upon the injustice situations to prevent further abuses of justice by the villain in the future. Injustice cannot escape upon itself, and that is why the character invites people to participate in the process of yielding justice, which shall limit the falling of tears by the poorest of the poor.
Essay Two
Power and Powerlessness in Kafka and A letter from an unknown woman by Stefan Zweig
Kafka’s The Trial
The possibly unfinished novel of Franz Kafka, The Trial critiques the modern structures of power basing its scenes on great miseries that limits its sense from the perspective of literature. Similar to a series of modernist writers, the authors utilize his art to outline his sense of powerlessness within a significantly meaningless, hostile, as well as dehumanizing world. Kafka’s The Trial criticizes the bureaucratized form of power that modern society portrays as well as its impacts on the will of the contemporary people.
The attempt by Josef K to understand the primary objective of power structures leads to his persecution and frustrations since the power structure lacks any actual purpose and meaning but primarily exists to force people to follow the rules as well as internal logic. The author illustrates the physical structures of the courthouse to illustrate its representation of power. Kafka expands the reader’s understanding of the courthouse by describing the first structure, which Kafka visits as purposefully being challenging to access. During Ks visit to the court, the character goes “…over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing was to take place, but they stood still again as desires these steps he could see three stairway entrances, and also seem to be small passageway at the yard leading into the second yard.” (28). The structure of the court premise is designed in a way that it cannot serve the requirements of the public, which the justice system is primarily intended to serve. It is easy to doubt if the structure of the judiciary serves the needs of the audience effectively. Moreover, the courthouse that is structured to maintain order has an appearance which is fetishlike and lacks order. K encounters the fetish self of the courts through its symmetric stairway within its entrance when he first steps into the building. The symmetry alters clarity to the court’s entry but provides a way to individuals under the court’s mercy. The author asserts, upon K’s reaching “the fifth floor, he decided to give up the search, took his leave of a friendly, young worker who wanted to lead him on still further and went down the stairs…” (29). The confusion in the path prevails to discourage and confuse the power to render them powerless amidst the seeking of justice.
Kafka’s The Trial portrays sexuality as how the powerful oppress the socially constructed powerless in the society. Although the law significantly expresses oppression, the manhood, and womanhood, determines the powerful and the powerless within the Kafka’s novel. Being a member of the powerless side qualifies one to be the oppressed by different elements of the society in the story. According to the Marxists school of thought, the novel focus in the strategies that the power of the governing institutions reign on K as well as how feminists perceive K’s exercise of power upon women (Kállay and Katalin 316). A perfect instance in the novel is where K asserts that “(…) And the purpose of this large organization, gentlemen? It consists of arresting innocent people and introducing senseless proceedings against them, which for the most part, as in my case, go nowhere” (Kafka 224).
On the contrary, both of the parties portray the blind spot areas that outline that sexuality and power relate to each other. Within the novel, readers can see that K is also a power’s victim. Whereas when an individual analyses the story in terms of sexuality, it is clear that an individual meets the wrath of law due to exercising abuse on women and proceeds with the act without even realizing that the action is wrong (Beck 44). In this case, the women are powerless since they are victims of such abuse.
The author says that “K. […] rushed out, seized her, kissed her on the mouth, then all over her face, like a thirsty animal lapping greedily at a spring it had found at last. (2.11)”. The two presentations of power and powerlessness presented in the novel neutralize the situation as K is oppressed and an oppressor. K mentions that “I recruit women helpers, he thought, almost amazed: first Fraülein Bürstner, then the court usher’s wife, and now this little nurse, who seems to have an inexplicable desire for me (6.3)”. The assertion is an absolute indication that K has the power of recruiting women to take care of several responsibilities. It is from this phenomenon that viewers can easily deduce the power of sexuality, confirming the notion that sexuality determines how power vests from one level to another.
A letter from an unknown woman by Stefan Zweig
The short story of letter by Zweig outlines the life of a teenage woman (Lisa) living in a poor neighborhood who falls in love with a wealthy writer (Stefan) in Vienna. The woman’s passion for the writer continues even when she moves to Innsbruck upon her mother’s remarry. While 18 years old, she moves backs to Vienna, takes a job, and begins to pursue the writer again. Even though the writer fails to recognize her, she also does not reveal her name and succeed in spending three nights with him before disappearing on a long holiday. Lisa gets pregnant, loses her job, and gives birth under poor conditions but decides she must provide a good life for the child. She resolves to sleep with rich men without marrying since her heart belongs to the writer. While she was out one evening with a lover, she spots the writer in a night club and instead went home with him. The writer recognizes her as just a companion and fails to acknowledge her exact identity. However, the flu pandemic of 1981 kills her child, and afterward, she got ill but decided to write a letter before her death to be posted post her death. The short story, A letter, by Zweig, outline the effects of power and powerlessness on affection in human life and death as opposed to the power in Kafka’s The Trial, which demonstrates consequences of bureaucratic power on the lives of modern people.
Zweig’s short story demonstrates the power of love utilized by women to render men powerless. While Stefan merely lacks knowledge of his obligations in the romantic dyad of Lisa, the female character claims to the male character in uncertainly no terms. Upon Lisa’s return to Vienna a few months later from Linz, she inspired the desires of Stefan via sheer repetition. Lisa stands in the street, offside Stefan’s apartment at the wall relief every night until she attracts the attention of Stefan. Even though Lisa actively pursues Stephan, the situation yields a paradoxical ability to leave him in critical cases, which might inspire actual intimacy. On a particular night, Lisa lies at Stefan’s feet while listening as he improvises the piano. At the time, Stefan pursues her to make a promise that she will cease from vanishing, and she asserts, “I won’t be the one that vanishes,” due to the fear that Stefan may pursue another woman (15).
On the contrary, Stefan becomes the first person to look for Lisa since she refuses to provide her with her address or name. Lisa’s preemption and anticipation of the ‘bad parent” make her take action outside the reversal of states of a helpless, abandoned child as well as leaving off the parent to illustrate the dialectic structures that the masochist performance portrays. Later, Stefan arrives at the salon where Lisa models, but Lisa asks, “How did you find me?” and Stefan responds: “I’m a good detective”(45). At the same time, Stephan is supposed to attend a tour in Italy, which he certainly forgets due to the powerful momentary pleasure that Lisa instills on him.
The power of fate provides Lisa with the strength to remain victorious during her lifetime and in her death. In Lisa’s letter, she asserts how little Stephan died of a fever, which prompted him to be unable to recognize his mother. Ostensibly, while Lisa responds towards her son’s loss, she mentions the way masochistic desire facades unreasonable quests on the romantic guise of fateful or mythical certainty. Lisa asserts, “As I write, it may become clear that what happened to us had its reason, beyond our poor understanding. If this reaches you, you will know how I came to be yours when you didn’t know who I was, or even that I existed” (112). According to Modleski, Lisa finally breaks the vow to keep silent at a time when she realizes that the silence cannot earn her any benefits. However, there is a possibility that Modleski compares the term “benefit” to logic, which is different from the tenor and desires of Lisa. It is evident the Lisa has attained a masochistic victory when she proves her perverse strength which is the ability to wait for spiritual success as described by Reik as:
The masochist, too, loses all battles except the last. He knows-at least in the anticipating phantasy-that the prize beckons after he has experienced all defeats. … This secret feeling of superiority draws its power from a phantasy that denies the laws of time, and that keeps extending the suspense. If not in his lifetime, the masochistic character will assert himself after his death and gain the rights denied to him on this earth (89).
At the sight of death, Lisa remains quite alive compared to Stefan, then while she was still alive. It is clear that the omnipotent power of Lisa magically controls events within the masochistic victory, which goes “beyond the grave” (Studlar 42). Lisa successfully changes the course of the life of Stefan when her letter inspires his action of choosing a noble death and duel with her instead of moving on with ignoble life staffed with sexual and professional decline.
Works Cited
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on theatre. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
Kállay, Géza, and Katalin G. Kállay. “I Wanted to Hear Your Judgement”: Waismann, Kafka and Wittgenstein on the Power and Powerlessness of Language.” Friedrich Waismann. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019. 315-332.
Clegg, Stewart, et al. “Kafkaesque power and bureaucracy.” Journal of Political Power 9.2 (2016): 157-181.
Studlar, Gaylyn. “Masochistic Performance and Female Subjectivity in” Letter from an Unknown Woman”.” Cinema Journal 33.3 (1994): 35-57.
Zweig, Stefan, Eden Paul, and Cedar Paul. Letter from an unknown woman. Viking Press, 1932.
Brecht, Bertolt, Desmond Ivo Vesey, and Eric Bentley. The threepenny opera. London: Methuen, 1979.
Burns, Robert P. Kafka’s Law:” The Trial” and American Criminal Justice. University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Reik, Theodor. “Masochism in Modern Man., translated by Margaret H.” Beigel and Gertrud M. Kurth (NewYork: Farrar, Straus, and Co., 1941) (1941): 4.