proceeds towards the Castle. K.'s journey is aimless from the morning he wakes up in the village. "[The] main street in the village, did not lead to the Castle hill, it only went close by, then veered off as if on purpose, and though it didn't lead any farther from the Castle, it didn't get any closer either" (10). As a land surveyor, someone appointed to make maps or diagrams for the use of the government, but all he sees is a mess of confusion. As soon as his presence is known to be based on a miscommunication, his role is effortlessly changed to school janitor. The myth of social status melts into thin air. For Kafka, character is as disposable as the reason that props it up, and in this allegorical world, office, not reason, is what holds the plot together.

Frieda is the only hope for K.'s understanding in his situation. When she first...

K. knows that he exists only inasmuch as he is accepted by another. Perhaps the narrator is most closely engaged with K. when he is pleading to Frieda to understand his puzzling situation (159-61),
The Castle is a dark and mysterious story. The three words "as you know" are haunting, because, of course, we do not know, and K. scarcely knows either. The chairman analyzes the assignment letter from Klamm, and, scarcely understanding the meaning of it himself, mocks the significance that K. puts upon it (70-1).

Work Cited

Kafka, Franz. The Castle: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text. Schocken Books: New York, 1998.