Why does everybody assume that K. was innocent?

My diary tbqh

>What is burden of proof??

Who assumes he was innocent? Noone in the book, surely. Not even K.

Are you suggesting the readers do? Only those who reduce Kafka's entire oeuvre to bureaucratic satire would come up with something so daft.

I think it's quite clear K. is guilty.

>>7680602
He is neither guilty nor innocent, he is condemned.

Because the people accuse him don't even know why they are doing so.

>>7680602

see Welles' adap. if u wanna see a "guilt"-laden interpretation

>>7680602

how about, he was guilty of being alive?

>>7680611
>Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.
>ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte

fucking plebs on /lit/

I love this book so much. It made me realise how powerful accutations can be, even if there is no evidence behind them. I could accuse someone of being a pedophile and his life would be parctically over

>>7682174
>le unreliable narrator

>>7680602
Does it even matter whether he's innocent or guilty?

>>7682499
then how are we shown throughout the book that the narrator is an unreliable one. this has to be done, an author can't just make shit up and then go: lel, i was just pretending to be reliable without ever giving a hint.

>>7682628
>>7682174
It's in that very sentence you quoted. It doesn't confirm whether he actually has done something bad, rather, that's what K thinks and the narrator simply repeats his thought. I hope you're not a native speaker?

I'll put the English translation by side for comparison:
>Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.

>>7682647
You said not even K. assumed he was innocent yet there the narrator says "he knew he had done nothing wrong"

>>7680611
I think it's quite clear K. is innocent. Did you even read the book?
Why would K. constantly be spouting about how he's innocent at the beginning if he was guilty?

>>7682679
I don't get it. K does say he's innocent, and the narrator simply repeats it in that line, but doesn't confirm whether he is or not. All the information we get is from K himself, thus it's unreliable.

>>7682195

A great film called The Hunt explores that idea

>>7682700
That's true. Overall I don't think it really matters if he's innocent. That's not the point of the story. Same with The Stranger

>>7682710
It's a slightly different scenario, though. It's clear that Mersault has committed a crime. The doubt is whether he'll die or not. But I agree that it doesn't really matter.

>>7682647
you're certainly right in saying that the narrator only relates k.'s thoughts, that still doesn't convey sufficiently that he is unreliable imo

>>7682688
>Why would K. constantly be spouting about how he's innocent at the beginning if he was guilty?
>why would a guilty person lie
what do you think

>>7682499
it's actually not necessarily a case of unreliable narrator, it could be said that it's true that he "knew" he did nothing wrong, but this was a kind of guilty self-delusion

>>7682688
He doesn't know what he did, so he can't know if he is innocent or not

Who the fuck assumes that, it's completely beside the point. It doesn't matter at all. It's like asking if Mersault really did get executed or not. Who cares.

>>7682700
That's a pretty retarded way of looking at it. Unreliability isn't an inherent trait of characters. There have to be contextual clues to hint that they may be lying or somehow unaware of the truth for them to be considered unreliable. Whoever taught you how to read did a terrible job.

>>7683018
More like asking whether Meursault actually had a condemnable mind which is a totally relevant question.

>>7682679
My translation said that he _was_ inocent, not that he knew he dindu nuffin. Too bad my german sucks.

>>7682920
Whether Mersault died or not wasn't really a concern either though. The whole point of the story was that whether he committed the crime or not was irrelevant. It was because the court determined he had no sense of morality that he was condemned to die. They barely even talked about the crime.

>>7682969
The narrator is reliable, it is K that is unreliable.

>>7683030
Sounds to me like you didn't get The Trial, at all. It isn't about a game of guess whether he committed a crime or not, it's irrelevant even. The book makes perfectly good sense both ways - K committed a crime but he doesn't want to admit it / he considers his deeds not worthy of punishment, making him a complete sociopath; or the other way being he is actually innocent, which is self explanatory.

On top of that, there HAS been very weird behavior/hints from K which a genuinely innocent person wouldn't have been doing (e.g. going to court again next week when he wasn't called again and similar exaggerations) but again, that could be considered a character trait depending on your interpretation.

Whether he's innocent or not is insignificant, did you even read the book?

>>7682703
I also recommend that movie. Dreadful situation.

>>7683017

This

>>7682703
>>7682195
>>7683673

Sounds like Harlan Coben's "Caught". A social worker is falsely lured into a "To Catch a predator" type traphouse and exposed on national media. But it focuses more on the character of the novel's "Chris Hansen".

>>7682647
>denn ohne, dass er etwas Böses getan hätte
Where did you get your "know" from? It clearly says he was arrested without any evil done by him.

Alright, let's just take a look at the circumstances under which Kafka wrote "Der Prozess".
He had just solved the engagement with Felice Bauer and as a result a bunch of his friends held a trial and questioned him on his intentions and stuff.
Now legally speaking, this action is no crime but it has quite big social implications. Him and Felice were kind of stigmatised after that among society. They maybe both had to struggle to find another partner in order to not die alone, like K. did.
So I guess you could say legally he was innocent, but the trial wasn't held in front of a usual court.

>>7685337
Because, sad to use this overused meme, they're monolinguals who force their interpretation into their translation.

>>7685337
Kafka is a known liar.

Ehm kafka

>>7683539
that's my point

I always saw it as he was a head honcho criminal who got amnesia.

>>7685337
It's the official translation and it is also in the original German implied..

>>7682195
That's basically the first scene with the Judge in Blood Meridian. Just with animals, not kids.

>>7682195
Yet you still demonize pedophilia.

>>7687681
I'm a native speaker and you're honestly wrong. Also, if he is guilty or not is irrelevant.. it is merely the original sin in a way. Kafka is mostly writing this absurd and symbolistic stories to express his views on faith and human existence.

>>7682647
This is literally a false and shitty translation and just shows how unreliable it is to read works outside of their original language. The original sentence does not talk about Kafkas standpoint, it literally states that he had done nothing wrong.

Yet- Just because he had done nothing ''bad'' (Böses=/=Wrong), doesn't mean that he's innocent

You master plebs.

It's obvious that the problem isn't whether or not K. did what they accused him of, but that they said that he was 'guilty', period.

Since they didn't say what he was guilty of, all he could do was plead innocence, but it's clearly problematic because what human is truly innocent.

You can be guilty without knowing it

>>7680605
FUCK

Am I the only one that pictures K. as Christian Bale?

>>7688894
I'm a german native as well and I think that
>hätte
is way more vague than
>hat
So I think it implies a guilt the narrator and K. aren't aware.
Also this:
>>7689072
Good point.

>>7690067
A batman-like vigilante?
I guess you are.
Elaborate please.

>>7680602
who is everybody?

>>7680602
On a similar note, when did you realise Castle K. was not the land surveyor?

>>7690067

Guilty of dubs

>>7690085
>>7687681
>>7685337
>>7682647

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a more precise translation be something like this?

>Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K. for him to be arrested one morning without having done anything wrong.

>>7683017
>>7689072

This

>>7690190

In the very first chapter when the Castle officials say they hired no land surveyor, and later they go "wait, actually, yes", K. thinks something along the lines of "so they have taken up the challenge, this is good..!"

Of his three novels, this is his worst one

>>7691351
no, 'verleumden' is 'defame' or maybe 'infamize', not 'telling lies about', why would you translate a single word as multiple if a single one in the target language will do? Also, in your translation it doesn't transpire that K. thinks that he has done nothing wrong/bad (like in the original), it's the narrator saying that K. didn't do anything wrong/bad and that's just not how it is in the original. your translation is shit and you should be ashamed of yourself, baka.

>>7692932
>K. thinks that he has done nothing wrong/bad (like in the original),

Is this some dumb /lit/ meme?

>>Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.

>ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte

NOT

>ohne dass er wusste, etwas Böses getan zu haben

It's the narrator, not K.

>narrator said he didn't do anything wrong
>no evidence the narrator is unreliable
>narrator is a regular old omniscient narrator
>what he says is true, what he says happened, happened
>literally no reason to believe otherwise
>he didn't do anything wrong

>>7680602
the point wasn't whether he was innocent or not. it's that the information he needs to really know to understand his situation is inaccessible to him.

>>7692953
the narrator is just RELATING K.'s thoughts and thus uses the conjunctive to convey this, is this so hard to get. if it was the narrator who thinks K. did nothing wrong, he would have used the simple past form 'hatte'.

>>7688894
Then you're a retarded native speaker. It says "hätte" in an implying fashion

>>7691351
No, your translation is absolute. There's a reason why Kafka (and the English translator) wrote it like that, he leaves open whether he has done anything wrong.

>>7689029
I love how people with zero language skills make posts like this. Of course the translation sounds wrong to you if you're incapable of understanding the subtleties of the original text.

>>7693606
that translation IS just plain wrong, you dolt.

>>7692962
K doesn't do anything wrong at first, but after the accusation he rapes that woman in the hallway

>>7693551
Diff anon. He uses Konjunktiv b/c the action was hypothetical, and b/c it just sounds better than
>weil er nichts schlimmes getan hat

That's some Fun with Dick and Jane shit. English would also use the subjunctive in literary circumstances (such as in the sentence preceding this parenthetical clause)

>>7687681
>official translation
The book was published posthumously, you mong, and against the wishes of Le Epic Bug Jew. I assure you that the "official translation" written in English is in no way the definitive source of evidence to support half-baked fan theories. It's some Extended Universe shit. Apply yourself.

>>7680602
Oh man, you guys make me miss college, even my Kafka seminars in Zürich sounded like this. Wish I could participate but I'm just the old guy saying: 'Now remember, these are the best days of your lives...'

Except this is /lit/. If you come here during the best days of your life, kill yourself.

>>7694724
How about YOU do the world a favor and kill your stupid ass?

>>7694613
'hat' is not an alternative at all, you spastic.

Not even gonna read more of this shitfest. K. is guilty, he did break the law, even though he has done nothing badly or wrongly. Once you get a little bit more into kafka you will see the religious, mystical background of it, which is summarized in the small story of the gatekeeper.