Subject: Kafka's "The Trial"
From: Paul Miller (phm@midsouth.rr.com)
Date: Thu Mar 23 2000 - 02:10:06 EST
Since Salinger was (is), a Kafka fiend this query may not be too out of
place. The parable below is from the Trial. Would any of you hazard a guess
as to the meaning here? I think it is key to understanding the Trial.
"Before the law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man
from
the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says
that
he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then
asks
if he will be allowed in later. 'It is possible,' says the doorkeeper, 'but
not at the moment.' Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper
steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the
interior.
Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: 'If you are so drawn to it,
just
try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only
the
least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after
another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already
so
terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him.' These are difficulties the
man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be
accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look
at
the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin,
black
Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission
to
enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of
the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be
admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper
frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his
home
and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great
lords
put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet.
The man, who has furnished hinself with many things for his journey,
sacrifices
all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper
accepts
everything, but always with the remark: 'I am only taking it to keep you
from
thinking you have omitted anything.' During these many years the man fixes
his
attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other
doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing
access
to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly;
later,
as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since
in
his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the
fleas
in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the
doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not
know
whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving
him.
Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams
inextinguishably
from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he
dies,
all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one
point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer,
since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend
low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much
to
the man's disadvantage. 'What do you want to know now?' asks the doorkeeper;
'you are insatiable.' 'Everyone strives to reach the Law,' says the man, 'so
how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever
begged for admittance?' The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached
his
end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear; 'No
one
else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I
am
now going to shut it."
Paul
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