Halls of the Dark Muse

I recently read "The Trial" by Kafka and I found it to be quite the interesting and enjoyable story, and one of the things of which I really like about it, is the fact that it does offer so many possibilities. I can come up with such a variety of different interpretations and it works on so many different levels.

On Goodreads there is a discussion group which is presently discussing the book and one individual brought up the possibility of K suffering from guilt in relation to sexual issues to which I than mentioned how I think that throughout the book K does exhibit inappropriate relationships with women.

We ended up engaged in this whole big debate in regards to the episode with Mrs. Bürstner and I thought the way K acted towards her was inappropriate and became borderline harassment. To my view she made it clear that she did not wish to have any further communication with K and regardless of what her reasons for this may be, of which she never states, the point is she does not respond to any of his attempts to contact her and clearly is seeking to avoid him, and yet he persists in trying to get in touch with her. Eventually she ends up having another woman move in with her, and though it does not directly state it was because of K, it is a bit of a coincidence that she does suddenly have this other woman moving in with her after her encounter with K and following his continued persistence to try and contact her.

Well all the other women involved in the discussion completely agreed with me and thought his behavior was completely inappropriate, and some had even harsher opinions about it than I did.

But the one male in the group has been avidly attempting to defend K and persisting that K does not act in any way that is appropriate, and that there is absolutely no justification within the text to presume to think that his behavior was inappropriate. And that if Mrs. Bürstner did not approve of his behavior than she would have or should have done this that or the other thing but sense she did not directly confront K than clearly she had no problem at all with his behavior.

Because according to him not responding to a person, and simply ignoring the letters they send you and ceasing to have any further communication is not a clear enough message that she wanted him to leave her alone, and that if she really wanted him to stop trying to get in touch with her than she would have sent his letters back unopened.