The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka in the 1910s and published posthumously in 1925. The novel was never finished. One of Kafka’s most famous works, The Trial is a nightmarish story where the rules of reality are bent and twisted, with the protagonist, Josef K., finding himself prosecuted for a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Written at a pivotal moment in European history, The Trial has become one of the foundational texts of literary modernism, commenting on both the tortuous bureaucracies of the late imperial era and, presciently, on the totalitarian regimes that rose as those empires collapsed after World War I. Written in a rigorously realist style, the novel lends itself to widely varied interpretative approaches, touching on psychological, social, and political themes including The Relationship between Law and Guilt, Inaccessible of Systems of Power, and The Absurdity of Bureaucracy.

This study guide refers to Breon Mitchell’s translation of the text, published in 1998 by Schocken Books.

Plot Summary

Josef K. wakes up one morning to find two strangers in his boarding house, who tell him that they have come to arrest him. Without disclosing the charges against him, they take him into the next room (occupied by another boarder, Fräulein Bürstner), where an inspector explains that although K. is under arrest, he will not be placed in confinement and can continue to go about his daily life unhindered. Confused, K. goes to the bank where he works. That evening, K. confronts his landlady, Frau Grubach, about the strange visitors, but realizes that she does not know anything. He later visits Fräulein Bürstner to apologize for the fact that her room was used by the officials without her permission. K. tries to kiss her, but she rebuffs him.

The next day, K. receives a phone call informing him that his initial inquiry is set for the following Sunday. He is given an address but no specific time. K. travels to the specified address only to find a run-down apartment building. He wanders inside until he finds the court set up on the fifth floor. After a few formalities, K. makes a lengthy speech complaining about his treatment and the inscrutability of the process. His speech is interrupted by a commotion from the back of the room, and K. leaves, outraged.

The following Sunday, K. returns to the court but finds that a hearing has not been scheduled for that day. He meets the wife of the court usher, whom he realizes was responsible for the commotion of the week before. As K. presses the woman for information, the two are interrupted by a young law student, who has been sent to bring the usher’s wife to the examining magistrate. K. subsequently discovers the court offices are in the stuffy and shabby attic. The poor air quality causes him to collapse.

As he is leaving work a few days later, K. finds two men in one of the bank’s store rooms being whipped by a third man. K. is informed by the flogger that he has been tasked with punishing the two men—revealed to be the warders who arrested K.—for their inappropriate conduct during the arrest.

K. receives a visit from his uncle, who is worried about the trial and urges him to hire a lawyer friend of his, Herr Huld. K. and his uncle find Huld ill at his house, being cared for by his nurse Leni. Huld explains that the workings of the court are shrouded in secrecy, but certain petitions can be filed. K. is surprised to learn that the chief clerk of the court has been in the room with them throughout this meeting. The clerk emerges from the shadows and joins them. K. is lured away by Leni, who seduces him in the next room. When K. finally leaves the lawyer’s house, his uncle rebukes him for his behavior.

K.’s preoccupation with his case causes his work at the bank to suffer. A client, the manufacturer, directs K. to Titorelli, a man who paints trial portraits for court officials. Titorelli tells K. that he does not know of anybody who has been truly acquitted by the higher court and advises him to either acquire an “apparent acquittal” from a lower court—which might be overturned at any time—or engage in “protraction” to slow down the process as much as possible and avoid a conviction. Leaving Titorelli’s apartment through a back door, K. finds himself in more court offices.

K. decides to dismiss his lawyer. Going to the lawyer’s house, he meets another client, the merchant Rudi Block, who tells him about his own trial, which has been going on for five years. K. dismisses his lawyer, who warns him that he is making a mistake. To show K. how well he has been treated, he calls Block into his room and mocks him viciously.

More time passes. At the bank, K. is tasked with showing an important Italian client around the city. While waiting to meet the client at the cathedral, K. meets a priest who addresses him by name. The priest recounts a parable about a man who waits by a gate his entire life trying to gain access to “the law” while a doorman forbids him from entering. The priest and K. discuss different interpretations of the parable.

The night before his 31st birthday, K. is visited in his room by two strangers. They restrain him, and he goes with them without protest. They come to the quarry at the edge of town, and the men produce a large butcher’s knife that they pass between themselves before one of them stabs K. in the heart. K. dies after exclaiming that he is being treated “like a dog!”