Franz Kafka's Influences When Writing The Trial Jonathan Evans

Nihilism is "the destruction of everything without pity" (Palmieri, 3). A completely different movement that is sometimes lumped together with Nihilism is Existentialism, which is a belief that "the world is without meaning or purpose." It also states "existence itself - all action, suffering, and feeling - is ultimately senseless and empty" (Pratt, 11). Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924) was an Existentialist author, but his work was distinctive enough to create his own style, Kafkaesque. It is used to describe texts that are similar to his (Crew, 1). He was "a relatively unknown author during his lifetime" and "published ... few of his works." His earliest works were destroyed, and his friend Max Brod published his later ones (Crew, 1). One of Kafka's favorite self-written books was The Trial, which clearly illustrates the main point of the Existentialist movement, that life is meaningless.

The Trial consists solely of a man's struggle to redeem himself and ends in his death. Throughout nearly the entire novel, Joseph K. is attempting to be pardoned of an unmentioned crime, that neither he nor the reader ever discovers. "The only sensible thing was to adapt oneself to...