leonel answers “It was great until the end. What really...”

Marianne asked this question about The Trial:

It was great until the end. What really happened at the end? I got the impression that Mr. Kafka could think of no conclusion and just ended the story. Like maybe he was intending a sequel?

leonel This is the actual answer for those clicking after years on this question.

The unfortunates of the most literal answer, rather than death of the author…moreThis is the actual answer for those clicking after years on this question.

The unfortunates of the most literal answer, rather than death of the author that is articulated by others' perspectives, is that Kafka was not proud of his writing, and thus never finished any of it. The last chapter may have been written in the beginning, but the reason was simply so that it had an ending, since nothing before it did.

The ending does make a lot of sense in that manner, if you think that after the cathedral, 10, 15 [...] chapters happened, and then came the ending. K. did something, or something happened to him, that made him a danger to the courts, thus causing his doom. It was inferred before that the courts function as an organism & ecosystem, not as a unified system under law, so control over his life may have fallen in the hands of a singular person, or 'the ones in charge'.

Consider the ending akin to 1984, where the upper party controls the flow of information, and Kafka for some reason or another, was convicted in a similar manner to Orwell's protagonist, reasonably or not, a danger to the system.(less)

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