Lovers of Sophia by Jason Reza Jorjani

Author:Jason Reza Jorjani [Jorjani, Jason Reza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780994595881
Publisher: Manticore Press
Published: 2017-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

4. Possessiveness and Promiscuous Women

So we have seen that there is one aspect of Joseph K. that is

perpetual y seeking advantage and attempting to assert a clear self-

identity. The two are of course inseparable; without a clear sense of

self, one cannot know what would be to one’s advantage. However,

from the very beginning of The Trial, Kafka also clues us into the fact that this deadly serious desire for order and judgment is not

characteristic behavior for Joseph K, who “had always been inclined

to take things easily, to believe in the worst only when the worst

happened, to take no care for the morrow even when the outlook

was threatening.”114 We are told that his decision not to interpret his arrest as a joke is motivated by an uncharacteristic learning from

past experiences “when against all his friends’ advice he had behaved

with deliberate recklessness and without the slightest regard for

possible consequences, and had had in the end to pay dearly for

it.”115 Even once his decidedly serious trial has gotten underway,

examples of reckless behavior by Joseph K. are neither few nor far

between. What nearly all of them have in common is some ecstatic

or even mystical interaction with promiscuous women. That is, K.

compromises his ‘advantage’ when he lets himself be seduced by

women that he cannot possess.

After hearing about how diligently K. undertakes his work at the

Bank, Kafka informs us that: “once a week K. visited a girl called

113 Brod,

The Blue Octavo Notebooks, 15.

114 Kafka,

The Trial, 4.

115 Ibid., 5.

274

jason reza jorjani

Elsa, who was on duty all night till early morning as a waitress in a

cabaret and during the day received her visitors in bed.”116 We should bear this in mind in evaluating his response to Frau Grubach’s

complaints that Fraulien Burstner is engaging in apparently

promiscuous behavior. According to the landlady, she comes home

very late and has been seen in disreputable “outlying” areas of town,

“each time with a different gentleman”. Joseph K. defends Fraulein

Burstner, a stranger whom he has hardly exchanged a few words

with, and responds in exasperation to his landlady’s intention to

restore respectability to her boarding house by saying: “if you want

to keep your house respectable you’ll have to begin by giving me

notice.”117 This reckless admission to being the greatest rogue of

the house stands in stark contrast with the landlady’s perception

of K., and her unflinching trust in him, as the most responsible

and respectable of her boarders. After this exchange, K. decides to

wait for Fraulein Burstner, whom he has just defended before the

landlady, ostensibly to inform her of the disarray that the Inspector

threw her room into during that day. He muses that after meeting

with her, he will still have time to go visit Elsa. Instead, a shocking exchange takes place between K. and Fraulein Burstner.

From the outset, Kafka evokes an air of secret liaison between

these two strangers. Joseph K. is sitting in his room, with the lights off and his door cracked open, awaiting her (for hours, we later find

out). When she enters the dark hal way, he whispers her name and

Kafka tel s us that: “It sounded like a prayer, not a summons.

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