Times and places of the trial: from Franz Kafka to modern hallucinations

Abstract

The organisation described in "The trial" by Kafka displays the photographic negative of the trial in a democratic order: a clear and immediate declaration of the accusation; the refusal of special courts; typicity of the acts of the proceeding and their accessibility; the distinction of roles and functions, especially those of the defense attorney.

Places and times in the Kafkaesque trial are deconstructed: the rooms of the court are indistinct from rooms with different functions, dissolved in their interchangeability; and the time of the proceeding is undeterminable.

Disturbing similarities could be found to “no-time-no-times justice” of mass media, where nothing is decided and everything is continuously second-guessed.