obsession within kafka

I recently finished The Trial by Franz Kafka. Did it take me 6 months? Yes. But it’s done now! 

I don’t need to say how important this book is. Even though it was originally unfinished, the messages about modern government and life are timeless. But you already know this–and I am not here to preach to the choir. I want to talk about what I noticed while reading: obsession. Everyone in this narrative was after only one thing, everyone was in their own world. 

Though we only follow the strict narrative of Joseph K, I think that we can quickly pick up on the strong internal lives of the other characters. When we examine them, we can see that Kafka, on top of painting a strong delusional yet grounded reality, shows that people are always striving after one thing in life. 

In K’s life, his trial quickly becomes his whole reality–as seen similarly with Block, another accused man later in the story. K’s reality becomes poisoned by his case and the he states that it starts inhibiting him from doing anything with his life. He has stopped almost all social interactions, he has stopped seeing his mistress, he can no longer focus at his job and is quickly falling behind, and most importantly… he is losing his passion for life.

Similarly, the Assistant Manager at K’s workplace, has only one sole purpose: taking K’s job. He is always seen snooping around K’s office, trying to outdo hom, etc. Leni, the servant of K’s lazy lawyer, is obsessed with male attention from accused men. Her attention is turned towards the clients of her employer. And, the list goes on. 

Through this story, Kafka has helped me come to terms with something that is very relatable in everyone’s life. Obsession is everywhere, it is a natural human behavior. And it is not always a negative thing. Sometimes it can push us to achieve our goals and change our lives. But they can easily hold us back. 

By examining these characters’ tendencies, we can observe that obsession can easily begin to harm us. Leni never fully gets the attention she wants by latching onto others, Block never makes progress, and K’s life only gets worse. 

What Kafka’s book has showed me is that we have to fill our lives with more than one thing, or else we get stuck, just like K. We let our obsessions rule our lives and let it become us, a dangerous but very easy thing that can happen. We let external factors rule us, instead of being the ruler of our own lives. And in the process, we ruin ourselves.

Maybe this is not the initial message that Kafka was intending, but it is still an important thought to keep in mind. Just food for thought.