Os rastros de uma crítica à modernidade em "O processo", de Franz Kafka: :o mito da justiça e o absurdo na literatura como eco da realidade

Abstract

The Trial is considered one of the greatest work by the Czech and Jewish author Franz Kafka. The novel here analyzed hardly would be defended as realistic because of the absurd narrative so common in Kafkas text. However, it is undeniable that this novel represents a critic to modernity. Our purpose was to research how this critic was materialized, and if it is capable to connect this novel to reality. Based on that, we analyzed how the use of images, time, and changes of perspective (Günther Anders, 2007) contributed to the disturbing nature, hyperbolic and absurd tone of Kafkas writing. We also observed how the description of the details supported to the results brought by the work capable of provoking the reality effect (Barthes,2004; Rancière,2010). One of the central points of this work was to highlight the relationship between the novel studied and the modernity, as a way of showing that the intrigue lived by Joseph K. can put us in clash with the reality. In this sense, we evaluated the literary work studied with the concepts of myth and enlightenment, using as a main reference Dialectic of Enlightenment, by Adorno and Horkheimer (2006). Furthermore, we evaluated how the reified Kafkaesque character negates himself when, without understanding why, is in front of the inexorabilities of the system that punishes him. Besides that, we emphasize how the absurdities narrated by Kafka are very close to some judicial practices in contemporary times: because the law, the normative system is one element of the bureaucratic machine (Arendt) and, although it always searches for enlightenment, it never stopped being mythical, according to Rosemiro Leal (2010). From this perspective, the figure of the accused is already at a disadvantage, because he is subject to the power of unknown forces, which he cannot fight. To defend that, the Kafkaesque is not so absurd like it seems to be, having a relationship with our own reality and making us think about it we used cases of the Brazils penal system for example. It is important to note that The Trial, although written more than a century ago, is still up-to-date and can alert us to social issues.