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A character in The Trial

Josef K.

Josef K.

The book

Cover of The Trial by Franz Kafka
The TrialFranz Kafka, 1925

A man is arrested without a charge and trapped inside rules controlled by authorities who refuse to explain them.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Josef K. is a thirty-year-old senior bank employee and the novel’s central character. He begins confident that status, intelligence, and persistence will defeat an absurd accusation. He wants both to dismiss the case and to master it, and that contradiction keeps drawing him back to the court. His arrogance appears in his treatment of subordinates and women, while his fear grows as the case invades his work and private life. Two executioners kill him in a quarry on the eve of his thirty-first birthday.

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