Eviscerating Memory in Kafka’s The Trial

This chapter, Erasing Memory in Kafka’s The Trial (1916) with its Crime and Punishment resonances, turns away from narrative realism toward the solitary Joseph K. under arrest for he knows not what. Kafka cancels the distinction between Joseph K.’s bodily reactions and the body politic. He represents a vision of how K.’s memory is erased by invisible tyrannical powers, and how his actions and thoughts become automatized through fear.