In this blog post, I analyze how the narrative structure of the sudden arrest depicted in the opening section of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ reveals the structure of the trial and K’s true identity through a disruption of daily life.

The Obscurity of Kafka’s Literature — The World of Images and the World of Metaphors

The key reason Kafka’s literature feels obscure lies in the abnormality of the situations presented in his works. Readers are lulled into the illusion of wandering through a dream, as a succession of unfamiliar images—difficult to define through empirical or everyday thinking—unfolds before them. Yet despite this strangeness, the combination of the narrative’s detachment, meticulous concreteness, and the metaphysical and structural order that emerges from them serves to highlight a clear, unified image throughout the work.
At the same time, Kafka’s works also exhibit fragmentation and ambiguity. Novels such as ‘The Castle’, ‘The Trial’, and ‘A Missing Person’ are either unfinished or hover on the threshold of completion; consequently, they lend themselves to a wide variety of interpretations, including political and social analyses, existentialist interpretations, theological and religious studies, philological research, and empirical and biographical studies. This diversification of interpretations can sometimes lead readers into a labyrinth of confusion.
Scholar Emrich, who astutely pointed out this situation, argued that Kafka’s works cannot be reduced to parables or allegories in the traditional sense. While fable-like and metaphorical narratives generally point to a clear concept or worldview, Kafka’s narratives fail to provide such unambiguous references. Therefore, it is inappropriate to apply the term “symbol” directly to Kafka’s literature.
The concept proposed by Emrich is the “world of parables (Gleichniswelt)” in Kafka’s literature. Unlike traditional parables and symbols, which presuppose a separation between objects and meaning, this refers to a heterogeneous yet unified world in which objects and meaning are integrated into one. Kafka’s world of imagery reveals its true nature only when its individual elements are closely intertwined to form a homogeneous whole.
Meanwhile, once one becomes familiar with this monistic world, one comes to recognize more clearly that the various characteristics of Kafka’s literature—non-conceptual meaning, extremely concrete descriptions, a “dreamlike” sense of time, and detailed depictions of movement—are closely interconnected and function in unison.

Arrest and Trial in “The Trial” — The Meaning of Structure and Early Narrative

The novel “The Trial (Der Prozeß)” unfolds its story across three settings: the boarding house, the bank, and the courtroom. Viewed as a vertical hierarchy, the boarding house represents the most private and lowest level, the bank the middle level, and the courtroom the highest-ranking public space. G. Frey divided the work into a section concerning “arrest” and a section pursuing “salvation,” based on this vertical progression and the horizontal progression that intersects with it. Part 1 (Chapters 1–5) depicts the phase in which the court’s “arrest and trial” are imposed upon K, while Part 2 (Chapter 6 onward) depicts the phase in which K himself struggles to escape the trial but ultimately only confirms the impossibility of escape. Here, we will focus particularly on Part 1—that is, the narrative related to “arrest”—to elucidate the significance of “arrest and trial” in the work.
It is commonly interpreted that the protagonist’s name, Josef K, reflects the author, Franz Kafka. This allegorical nature revealed in the naming of characters is one of the defining features of Kafka’s literature. For example, the “Josef” in Josef K’s name is sometimes interpreted as a clue reminding readers that Kafka originated from the Jewish ghetto. According to scholar Wagenbach, Kafka was born in a poor Jewish neighborhood; although his living conditions gradually improved due to changes in his family’s financial situation, he harbored a deep sense of guilt, feeling that he had betrayed his Jewish heritage. This background contributes to the tension between Josef K’s character and the narrative. There is also a perspective that connects Miss Bürstner, a character in the work, to Kafka’s fiancée, Felice Bauer; the similarity in the spelling of their names is often cited as evidence for this.
The novel begins with a sudden arrest one morning. The first sentence reads, “It was clear that someone had slandered Josef K.,” followed by the explanation: “He had done nothing wrong, yet one morning he was arrested.” On the surface, the expression “it was clear” seems to indicate an absolute certainty, but the supplementary clause that follows the conjunction “denn” (“because”) reveals that this “clarity” is, in fact, merely K’s own conjecture.
In other words, the judgment that “it was clear” is not an external, objective assessment, but rather an inductive conclusion reached by K, the arrested man, to convince himself. That conclusion is supported by minor clues, such as the disruption of daily routine—namely, “the maid did not bring breakfast every morning”—but these clues are ultimately merely the result of reasoning aimed at drawing the conclusion of “arrest” from within himself. Therefore, the narrative presents the “arrest” as the conclusion first, followed by the description of the facts that support that conclusion.
In this way, the reality of the arrest is inferred inductively from minor disruptions in the flow of daily life, but the moment when the scene of the arrest is actually revealed comes only a little later. Although it is not formally explicit, a stranger in a black suit appears when K rings the doorbell, and it is only then that the act of “arrest” is first presented phenomenologically. This narrative technique prevents the reader from viewing the arrest as a mere incident; instead, it emphasizes the boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary, as well as the subtle tension between conjecture and reality.

The Opening of the Arrest Scene and Everyday Life

Ignoring K’s question, “Who is it?”, the man asks, “Did you ring the bell?” When K explains the reason for ringing the bell—“I wanted to tell Anna to bring breakfast”—the man shouts loudly toward the next room. Laughter soon echoes back, followed by a reply that sounds like a declaration, as if they had been waiting for him: “That won’t do.”
This opening sequence already establishes the nature of this “arrest” and the basic direction of the story’s development. Beginning with the trivial incident of the maid failing to bring breakfast, the arrest unfolds amid the disruption of ordinary daily life, and the very fact that it manifests in this way implies that the arrest has already been completed.
The maid’s mere absence is merely a sign of an arrest that has already been consummated, and the bell K rang serves to summon a stranger, thereby confirming the arrest. The stranger waits for a response from the adjacent room before repeating, “It won’t do,” and it is in this scene that the organized signs of the world of ‘The Trial’ first reveal themselves.
This organized sign can be interpreted as the collusion of those surrounding K and the collective nature of this trial; ultimately, it suggests the inescapability—that is, the inevitability—of K’s “arrest and trial.”
One of the guards is named Franz. This name evokes Kafka’s own name and can be interpreted as another form representing K himself within the work. It is as if something that had been residing within K has now materialized as an external form.
Joseph K’s “arrest” is not a figment of a dream but an inescapable reality. Of course, this reality was made possible by a sort of fall from a rational and orderly empirical existence, but the phenomenon itself can never be reduced to a mere illusion.

The Organization, the Law, and K’s Reaction

Just as K is about to pay a brief visit to Mrs. Grubach, one of the guards stops him. “No, you mustn’t go. You’ve been arrested.” Thus, for the first time, K is stopped with the words “you’ve been arrested.” At that moment, K mumbles, “I suppose that’s the case,” and the guard replies, “Go into your room and wait. “The legal proceedings have already begun, so you’ll find out everything in due time.” At this moment, K intuitively realizes that he is surrounded by a massive organization that is beyond the power of any single individual to influence.
The novel does not rush toward identifying the cause—namely, “someone has accused K.” Rather, it focuses on elucidating the nature of the arrest itself. The central theme becomes how the arrest operates and what significance it reveals.
Watching the guards pocket his shirt and underwear, K thinks, “Even though all the laws are strictly in place,” or tries to convince himself that, since today is his thirtieth birthday, it must be a prank by his colleagues at the bank. Such delusions can be seen as an attempt to deny the reality of his arrest.
However, this time the guards even devour K’s breakfast. Acts such as “misappropriation” or “bribery” take on a sense of reality within the novel, repeatedly confirming that this world is not a dream but reality. It is precisely these realistic and concrete actions that solidify the events on the novel’s stage.
When K pulls out his identification card, the guard replies, “We’re just low-level employees, so we don’t care about things like identification cards. We have no relationship with you other than monitoring you for ten hours a day and receiving compensation in return.” This statement reveals a metaphor for modern organizational systems and working conditions. These low-level employees, paid for ten hours of labor, exemplify the human condition reduced to mere cogs in the organizational machine.
In the world of this novel, even the most trivial aspects of daily life take on meaning. Minor details—such as “Anna not bringing the meal” or “the old woman across the street looking at K with an unusual gaze”—accumulate layer by layer to reveal deeper significance. The low-level overseers define their “law” as follows: “Our agency does not seek out crimes among the residents; rather, we are driven by the crimes as they are written in the law, and it is because of those crimes that we overseers are sent.”
Their words reveal the crux of the matter. To them, the law is not a means of finding crimes among the residents; rather, it functions as if the crime itself were a force drawing the overseers toward it. When K says, “I don’t know such a law,” the guard Franz mocks him, saying, “This fellow claims he doesn’t know the law, yet he insists he’s innocent.”
One critic even asserted, “Not knowing the law is K’s crime.” However, the guards’ explanation is soon refuted by their superior, the Warden. The Director tells K, “I can never say that you have been accused, because I do not even know whether you have been accused or not. It is clear only that you have been arrested; I know nothing more than that.” In other words, while the fact of the arrest is confirmed, any statement regarding guilt or innocence is dismissed.
This does not mean, however, that the statements of the lower-ranking guards are meaningless. Even though the warden denies it, the guards themselves believe that what they said is true. The statement “you are being dragged about by your guilt” allows for a broader interpretation. Since guilt is related to self-awareness, what the guards meant can ultimately be read as, “You yourself are the one who called us here.” In other words, it implies, “You are a guilty person.”
K, who had intended to go before the director and push the matter to extremes, ultimately returns to his room, thinking, “If I do that, the two of them might cast him aside. Then he would lose all the social superiority he currently maintains.” Here, the “simplest solution” that K abandoned may appear contradictory on the surface, but he acts out of a desire to preserve his own superiority. He seeks to maintain his comparative advantage by viewing those monitoring him as beings who receive “payment for ten hours of labor.”
Upon returning to his room, K thinks, “Leaving him here alone is a situation where he could very well commit suicide.” Although this expression sounds like something the guards might say, it is actually a figment of K’s own imagination. Although there have been no significant external changes—aside from Anna’s failure to bring him a meal and the appearance of two strangers—K contemplates the extreme possibility of suicide. This demonstrates that this arrest carries a comprehensive significance for K as a whole, rather than being merely a physical confinement.
Ultimately, K attempts to go before the supervisor, but following the guard’s warning that “it must be a black jacket,” he obediently puts on the black jacket, saying, “If doing so will help get this over with quickly.” On the surface, K’s decision to abandon “the simplest solution” may seem contradictory, but in reality, it stems from his determination to witness the impending arrest and trial with his own eyes. He wishes to witness firsthand the reality of this arrest, which is approaching intermittently yet steadily.

The Director’s Words and the Guard’s Statement — The Uncertainty of Truth

The scene where the Director says, “It is clear that you have been arrested; I know nothing beyond that,” appears at first glance to be a simple statement of fact. However, a subtle paradox lies hidden here: the basis for the information that K has been arrested rests solely on the statements of the guards who were dispatched to him, yet the Director dismisses those statements as mere “chatter.”
Ultimately, K realizes that the basis for his “arrest”—which constitutes nearly all he knows—was provided by a source whose credibility is simultaneously in doubt. The Director’s dismissive attitude toward the surveillance officers’ words and actions prevents K from verifying whether those statements are even true. Furthermore, what is even more subtle is that the assessment that the Director treats the surveillance officers’ words and actions as trivial immediately raises the possibility that the Director’s own statements might also be trivial.

Notification and Confirmation — The Process by Which the Arrest Is Finalized

When K extends his hand in a gesture of reconciliation, saying, “Let’s shake hands and settle this amicably,” the Director retorts, “You have simply been arrested; nothing more.” The Director then states that their purpose in coming here is to notify K of his arrest and to confirm that he has accepted this fact. Thus, for K, the arrest is established not as a mere rumor or an uncertain possibility, but as a firm fact that has been repeatedly verified.
This scene reveals that the act of being notified of the arrest and accepting it is itself a kind of ritualistic confirmation procedure. The Director and the Guard are not merely notifiers; they function as agents who, through notification and acceptance, solidify the state of arrest as reality.

The Duality of Arrest: Maintaining Daily Life and the Confinement of One’s Entire Existence

The conversation takes an even more peculiar turn. The warden says, “You have clearly been arrested, but that does not prevent you from going to work.” Viewed from the outside, this statement seems to guarantee the continuation of daily life, much like being indicted while out on bail. However, in Kafka’s context, this remark carries a more fundamental meaning: the arrest does not merely leave K free to work or engage in outward activities, but extends to K’s “very existence.”
This interpretation aligns with the work’s fundamental theme—the paradoxical notion that “reality itself is a trial.” Emrich referred to the arrest as “an expression of one’s own inner state,” suggesting that while the arrest is an external fact, it is also inextricably linked to K’s inner state.

The Logic of Dreams and the Elimination of Background Characters — Narrative Techniques

As the director stated, K is startled upon hearing the notice that three colleagues have been sent to accompany him to the bank discreetly. Because he is preoccupied with the director and the guard, he fails to notice who his escorts are; conversely, on the way to the bank, he is so focused on his escorts that he does not notice the director and the guard leaving. This shift in mutually exclusive attention evokes the logic of dreams.
In the world of dreams, only what is being looked at takes on substance, while what is not being looked at vanishes. Kafka frequently employs this “logic of dreams”—introducing characters as needed and removing them from view once they are no longer necessary—as a narrative technique. Here, the very existence of the three men sent by the Chief and the Guard indicates that the court’s influence extends all the way to the bank.
When considered in conjunction with the supervisor’s remark that “this will not interfere with your work,” this arrest and trial emerge as a phenomenon that transcends mere formal detention to encompass K’s entire daily life. In other words, it signifies not a piecemeal disposition but a totalitarian domination where “life itself is the trial.”

The Spaces of the Preconscious, Conscious, and Unconscious, and the Objectification of Arrest

The scene where K enters Mrs. Grubach’s room, sees that it has been restored to its original order, and regains a sense of relief is also linked to a psychological hierarchy based on space. Nader’s psychoanalytic reading interprets the bank as the realm of the conscious, the boarding house as the preconscious, and the courtroom as the unconscious, viewing the doorman as a symbol of repression at the entrance to each realm. Viewed through this framework, the preconscious realm was temporarily disrupted by the sudden intrusion that morning, but by returning to the boarding house, K regains preconscious stability.
However, by evening, K realizes that even his final attempt to nullify the morning’s events has failed. At first, he tried to regard the arrest as a “raid”—a momentary deviation—but after various verifications, the arrest ceases to be K’s private, internal experience and becomes an objectively proven fact. The arrest, which began in a semi-conscious state, takes its place as truth in broad daylight.
This is the very essence of Kafkaesque irony. Just as the events that occurred in bed (the Metamorphosis) are confirmed as fact by the declaration that “it was not a dream,” the early morning arrest also solidifies into objective reality only by evening. In K’s case, reality and the trial become equivalent—not “life as a trial,” but “life = trial.”

Attempts at Reconstruction and the Onset of the Trial — The Centrality of the Arrest

K waits a long time for Miss Würstner, hoping for an explanation of the morning’s events. He apologizes, saying, “Your room was a bit messy this morning,” but she initially shows little interest. However, upon discovering that her photograph has been displaced, her attitude changes, and she begins to ask about the circumstances of the incident. K casually mentions the appearance of the guards and the term “Hearing Committee,” though in fact, the Director had merely stated, “The only thing that is certain is that you have been arrested.” K’s imagination concretizes that statement into the “Hearing Committee.”
Miss Würstner shows interest in K’s account of the trial, but ironically, she does not wish to know the details of the “arrest” itself—the very beginning of the trial. K argues that he can only take an interest in the trial as a whole once he understands the nature of his arrest, and attempts to reenact it. He pulls out his night desk to recreate the morning scene, but Miss Würstner stops him, and K becomes agitated, as if he had suffered “incalculable damage.”
What is revealed at this moment is the attitude of the entire work. The narrative repeatedly resists the temptation to resort to simple resolutions or causal explanations. Instead, it unfolds by bringing the starting point, the full scope, and the reality of the trial to the forefront. The arrest is not merely a tool of the trial but its essential starting point; without fully grasping its entirety, genuine interest in or understanding of the trial itself cannot be established.

The Homogeneity of the Trial and Reality

For Kafka, literature is cognition, and cognition is image (Bild). His friend M. Brot pointed out that Kafka could not speak of abstract events but always thought and spoke in images. This remark reveals the core theme running through Kafka’s entire body of work: reality always contains a revelation, and meaning is only fully revealed when it is visualized. An obsession with specific events is the very path toward the universal, and even the most trivial real-life situations can be read as revelations.
Therefore, everyday events—such as a sudden metamorphosis one morning or an unexpected arrest—unfold in complete continuity with reality, and as one strand of this, the world of judgment, where “reality = trial,” unfolds. Here, the trial is not merely a legal procedure but a figure that encompasses every aspect of an individual’s life and reveals itself in its totality. At the same time, it is also a “struggle for self-preservation.”
The work repeatedly depicts how the “arrest” is confirmed as fact, running parallel to the daily schedule that extends from morning to night. The setting—which emphasizes that the arrest does not interfere with daily activities, including one’s occupation—confirms that this arrest lies on the continuum of reality. As the conscious and unconscious acquire a sense of reality through detailed descriptions, the events are revealed in multiple layers.

The First Hearing Scene and K’s Response — Confirmation of Reality and Transcendence of the Law

The notification that the initial hearing is to be held on Sunday overlaps with the court’s explanation that “the hearing date was set for Sunday so as not to interfere with K’s work.” This explanation aligns with what the guard had previously stated: “You have been arrested, but we will not prevent you from going to work.” From this, we can infer three things: first, confirmation of the factuality and reality of this arrest and trial; second, that the court’s invisible power already extends across K’s entire sphere, including the bank; and third, that by not disrupting K’s daily life, the fact that “reality itself is the trial” becomes even more evident.
The scene where K seeks out the courtroom illustrates the concrete unfolding of this concept. Recalling the name “Lanz,” he knocks on the door, seeking the carpenter Lanz, but after several fruitless attempts, a woman doing laundry directs him to the next room. It is unclear whether this guidance was truly intended for Lanz or if the woman simply ushered the visitor into any available room. Such coincidence and ambiguity serve as a device to reveal the trial’s invisible workings.
The scene in the hearing room—the cramped podium, the murmuring crowd, the investigating judge sitting there snorting—shows that a trial can suddenly appear anywhere in reality. The investigating judge’s mistaken assumption—“You’re an interior decorator, aren’t you?”—leaves a ambiguity that could undermine its continuity, but when K replies, “No. “I am the managing director of a major bank,” the crowd bursts into laughter. This single statement thwarts K’s hope of confirming the trial’s factuality while simultaneously making the trial’s extra-legal nature even clearer.
K attempts to argue the illegality of his arrest, but this “arrest and trial” is already grounded in a truth that transcends the dimensions of legality and illegality. His defense, which raises the issue of illegality, is instead rendered null and void, emphasizing the trial’s extra-legal nature. Furthermore, the scene in which he turns those he believed to be sympathizers among the crowd into enemies—when he points out that the preliminary judge is exchanging signals with someone, causing the crowd to unite as one—reveals K’s isolation and how the trial contrasts the individual with the collective.
The woman doing laundry reappears and causes a commotion; K mistakenly believes he is in control of the gathering, but upon seeing the insignia on the audience’s outer garments, he realizes they are all of the same kind. Although divided into various sizes and colors, they exist as a collective, while K alone remains an individual. These scenes clearly demonstrate K’s non-belonging and the purely individual nature of the trial.
Finally, the novel’s central theme is clear. Based on the perception that “life = trial,” Kafka shows the process by which feelings of anxiety and self-punishment are intensified and integrated into the form of a “trial.” Once it surfaces in the form of a trial, its content inevitably unfolds by borrowing the fictional trappings of a real trial. At the same time, this form serves to transform a subjective experience into an objective reality. The “arrest,” confirmed by Mrs. Grubach, Miss Würstner, and the bank clerks, is thus observed and verified as a social and objective fact before the courtroom crowd.

The One-Time Nature and Everyday Reality of the Trial

K waited a week for a notice from the court, but when none arrived, he decided to go to the courthouse himself. However, the courtroom was not merely closed; it was completely empty, having entirely concealed its appearance as a “courtroom.” This scene is juxtaposed with the boarding house in Chapter 1, where the “arrest” and its confirmation took place, which had been tidied up as if nothing had happened by the time K returned from the bank.
In particular, the ephemeral nature of the room where the “initial hearing” took place—now cleared into an empty space devoid of even a single human shadow—simultaneously reveals the fact that the event will never be repeated in the same form and the permanence of the meaning that arises from it. The fact that the “hearing,” which had taken place once before, does not occur this time serves to prove both its one-time nature and the permanence of its meaning. “Meaning,” which has become completely one with everyday reality, is completed in its one-time nature and permanence: when turned one way, it is revealed; when turned the other way, it returns to everyday life.
The wife of the court clerk encountered in this scene, like the other women in the work, is attracted to K. While it is described that she is drawn to K because of his dark eyes, she is also surrendering herself to the violent affections of a college student who is interning under the preliminary hearing judge. On the surface, it appears to be a forced situation, but when the student tries to sweep her into his arms and flee, K grabs the student’s shoulder. She pushes K away, saying, “No, no. Don’t do that… This man is really just following the preliminary judge’s orders; he’s only taking me to the preliminary judge.”
It is unclear whether her statement is true or not. However, judging by the fact that an obscene book is lying on the preliminary hearing judge’s desk, there is a possibility that her words are true. She also says that the preliminary hearing judge sits at his desk late into the night writing reports, though she cannot say what connection those reports have to the obscene book. Since the work presents a succession of images without further explanation, the obscene elements and the everyday routine of the courtroom are depicted as overlapping. This overlap connects to K’s “archetypal” everyday reality, demonstrating that the two cannot be separated within the framework of “reality as trial” and reinforcing the fact that the trial absolutely dominates K’s entire existence.
Furthermore, the woman’s testimony reveals that the “initial hearing” held earlier was not the result of a mistake by the investigating judge, but rather a hearing prepared specifically for K. By stating, “After all, the questioning of you was clearly one of the main events of that Sunday’s trial,” she makes it clear that the initial hearing was not a procedural error or misunderstanding, but was arranged specifically to target K.
After that scene, K gazes at a narrow wooden staircase labeled “Court Office Elevator Shaft” and watches as Jung-ri’s mother-in-law is carried away in a student’s arms. At that moment, K reflects on his own position relative to the judge. He perceives the judge as sitting in an attic, whereas he himself occupies a large room at the bank with a waiting area, from which he can look down on the bustling square through a large glass window. However, in the world depicted by the work, reality and the realm of meaning are sometimes reversed and sometimes restored; the most authoritative and profound is expressed through a humble exterior, while the most lowly and powerless appears alongside well-adorned nobility. Therefore, the shabby exterior of the Court Registry actually serves to prove the absolute dominance that this trial holds over K.
As the chapters progress in this manner, the factual nature of the “arrest and trial” initially presented is socially validated, and the inescapability of this “trial” and the court’s overwhelming power become increasingly clear. Given the one-time nature of the “initial hearing”—which will not be held again in the same form—and the words of the preliminary judge, it is not difficult to surmise that if the hearing were to be repeated, it would take the form of a higher appellate proceeding. Therefore, K has no choice but to prepare for the next hearing, and the latter half of the novel will unfold around those preparations and efforts. On the surface, these efforts will appear to be attempts to seek liberation from the trial or to argue for its invalidity.

Dynamic Hebrew Thought and Its Implications

To understand the world of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’, it is necessary to consider the Hebrew mode of thought. In his book, scholar Th. Boman points out that there is a fundamental difference between Indo-European Western thought and Hebrew thought. While Western thought is static, spatial, visual, and conceptual in nature, Hebrew thought is dynamic, temporal, auditory, and concrete; among these characteristics, “dynamic nature” is considered the most central.
According to Boman, the fundamental meaning of verbs in Hebrew is to express movement and activity, and a fixed existence without movement is regarded as a kind of nothingness. In other words, for Hebrew speakers, to exist means to be performing some action or to be in a certain state as a result of that action. Consequently, even verbs denoting a state of rest are understood in a Hebrew context not as a disconnected pause but as a fluid state, simultaneously expressing both existence and becoming. While “sitting” may appear to be a simple statement of state from a Western perspective, from a Hebrew perspective it is understood as the result of an internal act arising from the subject’s choice and will.
In the Hebrew linguistic tradition, noun clauses play a significant role; in such cases, the subject and predicate (especially when the predicate is a noun) reveal identity. For example, in the expression “The altar was wood,” the altar and the wood are identified with the material, establishing a complete identity: “altar = wood.” Bohman explains that while European thought tends to separate the “form” and “material” of an object, for Hebrew thinkers, the material itself is the object, and the separation of form and material does not occur naturally in their imagination.
Consequently, Hebrew concepts are grasped as a wholeness contained within individual phenomena, and there is no “path of abstraction” by which the general is deduced from individual cases. There is no room here for the dualistic separation of idea and concrete, general and particular, thing and meaning, or body and mind. Instead of presupposing a single monistic question—“What is it?”—regarding a given object, a world of things unfolds in which the object itself already implies wholeness.
This characteristic of thought explains why, in ‘The Trial’, the question “What exactly is a courtroom?” leads to an endless labyrinth of interpretation. The world of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ must be viewed as a world of forms in which life and trial are unified—only then can its complexity be truly understood—going beyond the simple metaphor that “life is a courtroom.”

Structural Unity and the Translegal Nature of the Trial

The structural heterogeneity of the world in ‘The Trial’ can be summarized as a material unity that does not permit the separation of the abstract from the concrete. When considered in connection with the Hebrew mode of thought, this characteristic can be seen as stemming from the unique qualities possessed by Kafka as a Westernized Hebrew.
Scholar Emrich proposed the term “world of metaphor” to explain the “holistic signification” of Kafka’s literature. This refers to a world in which the particular and the universal, as well as meaning and concreteness, are not dichotomously divided but are integrated into a single whole.
Therefore, when interpreting ‘The Trial’, rather than attempting to artificially separate concepts from their forms in a dualistic manner, it is more natural to become familiar with Kafka’s distinctive “metaphorical wholeness.”
Viewed through this structural lens, the meaning of “Arrest and Trial” becomes clear. First, K’s “arrest” should not be understood merely as punishment for criminal charges, but rather as a form of “arrest” directed at K’s very existence—encompassing his entire daily life, including his professional sphere. Second, within the unified image of “life = trial,” the irreversibility of K’s inability to escape the trial is emphasized. Therefore, since this “arrest and trial” is grounded in a higher dimension of “truth” that transcends judgments of legality or illegality, K’s claims of illegality have no effect whatsoever. Rather, this only serves to further emphasize the trial’s supra-legal nature and its absolute dominion over K’s entire existence.
Ultimately, the latter half of the novel will center on K’s defiance and resistance—that is, his efforts to escape this trial. However, considering the structure and nature outlined above, while such efforts may superficially aim for liberation or the invalidation of the trial, they are likely to remain, at their core, impossible or limited attempts carried out within the framework of “the trial that defines his entire life.”