Picture Lessons in Kafka's The Trial
The argument
K. wonders whether he has learned nothing. The essay asks what the pictures in The Trial have taught him, from the sketch on the judge's desk to the painting he studies in the cathedral. None of them gives a mimetic image that matches the truth, and none settles the uncertainty of his case. Looking at them becomes a lesson in how identity and judgment depend on relations and context. The lesson builds through the novel's run of visual encounters. K. cannot extract it as a verdict, and neither can the reader. Kafka puts perception and interpretation inside the philosophical problem: how does anyone learn from images that give no stable account of what they show?
Publication details
- Author
- Katherine Elkins
- Publication
- MLN 136, no. 3 (2021), pp. 755–769.
- DOI
- 10.1353/mln.2021.0052
Picture Lessons in Kafka's The Trial at the publisher →
Key concepts
Kafka; The Trial; pictures; visuality; perception; aesthetics; interpretation; judgment; relational identity; literature and knowledge.
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Philosophy, Literature, and Information →
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