Kafka’s castle and question on knowability

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) has been considered one of the most influential figures in 20th-century literature. His works, including "The Trial," "The Metamorphosis," and "The Castle," are characterized by a surrealistic and nightmarish quality, often exploring themes of absurdity, alienation, and the individual's struggle against facelessness, rootlessness, meaninglessness and above all place-lessness, the inherent condition of modern life. By modern life is meant a spatial-temporal condition where everyone appears kind/unkind, yet the true identity and intentionality of the individual remains a mystery.

Which necessitates close attention to what people are doing, and what they say they are doing, while they are in the process of doing it. Kafka's writing style and the term "Kafkaesque" have become synonymous with the portrayal of surreal, disorienting situations and the existential angst.

Kafka makes his readers wear the shoes of his characters, to make them transcend the mere observance of the see/saw phenomenon to a deep contemplative trip to grab hold the value of the human soul which is the most intimate part of animate beings.

As in many of Kafka’s works, the protagonist, be that Geogre Samsa of Metamorphosis or Joseph K. of Trail, or K. of The Castle, is on a quest for a goal that proves unattainable. As it is believed that any philosophical quest gets start with either a man taking off for a journey or a stranger arriving in the town.

In The Castle, the main protagonist, named as K. arrives in the village, which is governed by the Castle authorities, as land surveyor hence a stranger and becomes seriously and deeply involved with the lives of the people. So, K. lands in an ocean of know-abilities, hence The Castle puts the question on human Know-ability within the given ecosystem of human interactions.

What precisely could Kafka’s Castle signify? If Kafka uses Castle as metaphor what would that mean? Kafka's readers always navigate through the multitude of meanings because Kafka always speaks his heart. Metaphors, writes Kafka, made him nearly despair of being a writer. Nonetheless, Kafka’s complexities of life-world, refracting from his literature, makes it abundant in literary imagery.

Here, The Castle could be precisely decoded as the human nature which appears to be appealing in exterior as is the case with the appearance of Castle and interior could be reverse of what appears, as evidenced by flaked interior walls of Castle. If The Castle would be signified as human nature enveloped in the interior and exterior of beings, communication or interaction would mean breaking off that envelope to know that nature.

What if that interaction is not for the basics of dignity that human life deserves if not desires. How would that translate to the human soul? As Kafka writes that a miss is as good as a mile or human beings can escape from a situation/catastrophe just from a hair’s length. That is, to live is to survive first. Kafka hints at the danger of getting plummeted in meaninglessness and self-centeredness intrinsic in the age of capitalism and consumerism. In The Castle, the narrator, echoing K., thinks, “all [humans do or] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters', suggesting that The Castle is ruled by self-interests rather than any public advantage, or collective good.

Once that short term goal is served every concerned person becomes the object of ridicule. The essence of an introduction is not merely the arrival at the table, but rather, it crystallizes when the individual departs. The true concern lies not in the act of ridiculing, but rather in the dynamics of who ridicules whom.

If ridiculing is being executed by those who are the creatures of that habit, then it is good for the one who gets ridiculed, because it simply means that individual does not fit-in their pack. That is where the authenticity/inauthenticity of that individual lies.

As K. who is shadowed by his two assistants following his commands four square, yet they accomplish nothing for him. 'For the gentlemen here it is always noon,' K. said to himself.

The subtle reference that every person who arrives at us carries a baggage of good and bad things, or we say agenda. That agenda could be to trap somebody in developing a desire or hope of any kind and in this new brave world we will have to show resistance to that developed desire and that would keep an individual authentic and safe from everyone else.

As there is a character in the novel, whose obsession for The Castle is feared which ultimately turns out that he actually has an agenda to reach out to his crush living in The Castle. I don’t know whether this agenda of reaching out to someone one adores is a good or bad thing, but nevertheless it still stays the agenda. But still, he pursues the dream-the desire for The Castle is the mask of the desire and mask for the desire.

As one of the characters Amalia understands the mechanism of bare instrumentalism of the human interactions; she finds relief only in solitude, resting in the sacrality of the internal scene, by resisting the desire for The Castle. This informed solitude/silence still keeps an air of knowledge, expectation, and desire- the desire of not having desire.

Whereas everyone is having the longing desire for The Castle- that way, they are prisoned in their own created unkind world. That keeps them in flux or entangled in human interactions, liable to be used for anything, given people have turned to be capitalists even of their emotions whereas we are supposed to be Marxist and Socialist at that front i.e. to work for some collective good­­--being fair as individuals in our interactions and intentions.

That would mean at the least, leaving the human soul in the conditions to live, if not to grow. Kafka's K. seems perpetually concerned about his presentation and the management of his appearance to suit the given situation irrespective of finding the task burdensome.

What remains unexplained is the fascination that The Castle continues to exert upon the villagers and especially K. This mysterious fascination suggests that Kafka regards the simplicity of hope to yearn for something good, and/or maybe, transcendental good, just how democracy portrays, “by humanity, for humanity and from humanity”.

But being or getting caught in a situation of developed or aroused hope that appears to come along but does not get fulfilled leaves humanity in a precarious condition. This condition leads not to bodily harm but leaves one's soul in want. Human soul becomes the victim of human genius.

Kafka writes elsewhere “I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.” Can we take off the inhuman masks and wear that kind of humane simplicity to solace humanity in general and human soul in particular amidst the catastrophes of human unkind, for a being-in-with-the-shared-world.

My love for Kafka’s Castle is inherited in the sense that it is deemed to be looking for something good in the end which may also mean surrendering to the circumstances at work in its most innate nature- because there is no escape.

BY Mohammad Asif

Mohammad Asif is a doctoral candidate at the Department of History and Culture,

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.