Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the levels of imprisonment in Franz Kafka's The Trial. These levels include legal arrest, social containment and humiliation, and linguistic entrapment. Our chapter then traces the modernist narrative dream-structure of the novel in order to tease out thematic issues of guilt and innocence. The novel presents its drama in clearly defined domains: the bank, the law, the family, and so on. The tragic action and trajectory of the novel offer an analysis of some key features of modern victimhood. In this respect, the novel as a whole analyzes the modern scapegoat, and does so in terms of victimage within institutional and bureaucratic contexts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Freedom and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka’s Cages |
| Editors | Kiarina Kordela, Dimitris Vardoulakis |
| Place of Publication | U.S. |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
| Pages | 29-48 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780230118959 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780230113428 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 |