The Castle (German: Das Schloss, also spelled Das Schloß [das ˈʃlɔs]) is the last novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1926. In it a protagonist known only as “K.” arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by Graf Westwest.
Kafka died before he could finish the work and the novel was posthumously published against his wishes. Dark and at times surreal, The Castle is often understood to be about alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems, and the futile pursuit of an unobtainable goal.
History
Kafka began writing the novel on the evening of 27 January 1922, the day he arrived at the mountain resort of Spindlermühle (now in the Czech Republic). A picture taken of him upon his arrival shows him by a horse-drawn sleigh in the snow in a setting reminiscent of The Castle.
Hence, the significance that the first few chapters of the manuscript were written in the first person and at some point later changed by Kafka to a third-person narrator, “K.”
Max Brod
Kafka died before he could finish the novel, and it is questionable whether he intended to finish it if he had survived his tuberculosis.
At one point he told his friend Max Brod that the novel would conclude with K., the book’s protagonist, continuing to reside in the village until his death; the castle would notify him on his deathbed that his “legal claim to live in the village was not valid, yet, taking certain auxiliary circumstances into account, he was permitted to live and work there.”
However, on 11 September 1922 in a letter to Brod, he wrote he was giving up on the book and would never return to it. As it is, the book ends mid-sentence.
Although Brod was instructed by Kafka to destroy all of his unpublished works on his death, Brod instead set about publishing many of them.
Das Schloss was originally published in German in 1926 by the publisher Joella Goodman of Munich. This edition sold far less than the 1,500 copies that were printed.
It was republished in 1935 by Schocken Verlag in Berlin, and in 1946 by Schocken Books of New York.
Brod heavily edited the work to ready it for publication. His goal was to gain acceptance of the work and the author, not to maintain the structure of Kafka’s writing.
This would play heavily in the future of the translations and continues to be the center of discussion on the text. Brod donated the manuscript to Oxford University.
Brod placed a strong religious significance on the symbolism of the castle. This is one possible interpretation of the work based on numerous Judeo-Christian references as noted by many including Arnold Heidsieck.
Malcolm Pasley
The publisher soon realized the translations were “bad” and in 1940 desired a “completely different approach”. In 1961 Malcolm Pasley got access to all of Kafka’s works except The Trial, and deposited them in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
Pasley and a team of scholars (Gerhard Neumann, Jost Schillemeit, and Jürgen Born) started publishing the works in 1982 through S. Fischer Verlag. Das Schloß was published that year as a two-volume set — the novel in the first volume, and the fragments, deletions, and editor’s notes in a second volume. This team restored the original German text to its full and incomplete state, including Kafka’s unique punctuation, considered critical to the style.
Stroemfeld/Roter Stern
Interpretations of Kafka’s intent for the manuscript are ongoing. At one time Stroemfeld/Roter Stern Verlag did work for the rights to publish a critical edition with manuscript and transcription side-by-side. But they met with resistance from the Kafka heirs and Pasley.
Title
The title Das Schloss may be translated as “the castle” or “the palace”, but the German word is a polyseme that can also mean “the lock”. It is also phonetically close to der Schluss (“conclusion” or “end”). The castle is locked and closed to K. and the townspeople; neither can gain access.
The castle does not look like a castle. Anthea Bell’s translation states that it was “an extensive complex of buildings, a few of them with two storeys, but many of them lower and crowded close together. If you hadn’t known it was a castle you might have taken it for a small town” (p. 11).
Plot
The protagonist, K., arrives in a village governed by a mysterious bureaucracy operating in a nearby castle. When seeking shelter at the town inn, he claims to be a land surveyor summoned by the castle authorities. He is quickly notified that his castle contact is an official named Klamm, who, in an introductory note, informs K. he will report to the Mayor.
The Mayor informs K. that through a mix-up in communication between the castle and the village, he was erroneously requested. But the Mayor offers him a position as a caretaker in service of the school teacher. Meanwhile, K., unfamiliar with the customs, bureaucracy and processes of the village, continues to attempt to reach Klamm, which is considered a strong taboo to the villagers.
The villagers hold the officials and the castle in high regard, even though they do not appear to know what the officials do. The actions of the officials are never explained. The villagers provide assumptions and justification for the officials’ actions through lengthy monologues. Everyone appears to have an explanation for the officials’ actions, but they often contradict themselves and there is no attempt to hide the ambiguity. Instead, villagers praise it as another action or feature of an official.
One of the more obvious contradictions between the “official word” and the village conception is the dissertation by the secretary Erlanger on Frieda’s required return to service as a barmaid. K. is the only villager who knows that the request is being forced by the castle (even though Frieda may be the genesis), with no consideration of the inhabitants of the village.
The castle is the ultimate bureaucracy with copious paperwork that the bureaucracy maintains is “flawless”. But the flawlessness is a lie; it is a flaw in the paperwork that has brought K. to the village. There are other failures of the system: K. witnesses a servant destroying paperwork when he cannot determine who the recipient should be.
The castle’s occupants appear to be all adult men, and there is little reference to the castle other than to its bureaucratic functions. The two notable exceptions are a fire brigade and that Otto Brunswick’s wife declares herself to be from the castle. The latter declaration builds the importance of Hans, Otto’s son, in K.’s eyes as a way to gain access to the castle officials.
The officials have one or more secretaries that do their work in their village. Although they sometimes come to the village, they do not interact with the villagers unless they need female companionship, implied to be sexual in nature.
Major editions
1930 translators: Willa Muir and Edwin Muir. Based on the First German edition, by Max Brod. Published By Secker & Warburg in England and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States.
1941 translators: Willa and Edwin Muir. The edition includes an Homage by Thomas Mann.
1954 translators: Willa and Edwin Muir additional sections translated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. Supposedly definitive edition. Based on the Schocken 1951 supposedly definitive edition.
1994 translators: Muir, et al. Preface by Irving Howe.
1997 translator: J. A. Underwood, introduction: Idris Parry. Based on Pasley Critical German Text (1982, revised 1990).
1998 translator: Mark Harman who also writes a preface. Based on Pasley Critical German Text (1982, revised 1990).
2009 translator: Anthea Bell, introduction: Ritchie Robertson. Based on Pasley Critical German Text (1982, revised 1990).
Characters
K., the Land-Surveyor
The protagonist of the story, recognized as a land surveyor, employed as the school janitor, and a stranger to the townspeople. He spends most of the novel doggedly trying to overcome the bureaucracy of the village and to contact the castle official Klamm, but he is continually thwarted and frustrated. K. forms a sexual relationship with Frieda, the barmaid, but she eventually abandons K. for one of his assistants, Jeremiah.
Frieda
A former barmaid at the Herrenhof, who is K.’s fiancée for most of the novel. She often finds herself torn between her duty to K. and her fears regarding his over-zealousness. She eventually abandons K. and ends up in the arms of his former assistant, Jeremiah (who has since become a waiter at the Herrenhof).
Hans, landlord (Bridge Inn)
Nephew of the original owner of the inn; according to his wife, Gardena, he is lazy and overly nice to K. According to K. if Hans had another wife as a first love he would have been more independent, diligent and manly.
Gardena, landlady (Bridge Inn)
The prime mover of the Bridge Inn, which she has been running singlehandedly for years; the work, however, has taken its toll on her health. She is a former short-term mistress to Klamm and very distrustful of K.’s motives and eventually evicts K. because of K’s insistence on meeting Klamm; she remains infatuated with Klamm.
Barnabas, a messenger
A messenger of the castle assigned to K. He is new to the service; K. is instructed to use him to communicate with the official Klamm. He is slender and agile though very immature and sensitive.
Arthur and Jeremiah, K.’s assistants (Artur and Jeremias in Harman edition)
Shortly after his arrival in the village, K. is assigned two assistants to help him with his various needs. They are a continual source of frustration and annoyance for him, however, and he eventually drives them from his service through his brutal treatment. They have been assigned to K., to make him happy, by the official Galater who was deputizing for Klamm at the time.
Mayor/Superintendent (Village Council Chairman
