The Castle

The Castle (Das Schloss) by Franz Kafka was published in Germany in 1926. Kafka had expressed the wish that his books not be published, but his friend Max Brod ignored this after the writer’s death in 1924. The Castle did not sell well initially and its availability was restricted by Nazi efforts to ban works by German Jews like Kafka. One Jewish publisher, Schocken Verlag, was permitted to continue publishing Jewish works on the condition that they were only sold to Jews. Despite such barriers, Kafka’s works were recognized for their literary significance and were translated into Hebrew and then, after WWII, into several languages. Thereafter, Kafka gained recognition worldwide for his most popular works, The Trial, Metamorphosis, and The Castle; he is now regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature.

The Castle was first translated into English by Edwin and Willa Muir and published in Britain and the United States in 1930. Their translation interpreted the titular Castle as the seat of divine grace and implied that K.’s struggle was that of a pilgrim seeking God. This translation caused controversy and was discredited by later critics. The latest translation, completed by Mark Harman and published by Schocken in 1998, contains the translator’s detailed preface explaining the challenges of translating the book. These include the inflection of Kafka’s tone, the manipulation of his barely punctuated prose, the selection of appropriate vocabulary, and the effort of making sense of K.’s strange world. The translator, the reader, and the protagonist are all faced with this same final challenge. It is Harman’s translation that is referred to in this guide.

Plot Summary

One night, K. arrives at the unnamed village below the Castle of Count Westwest, supposedly having been summoned by the Castle authorities to work as a land surveyor. He finds lodging at the Bridge Inn, but an official immediately questions his right to be there. A phone call is made to the Castle to state K.’s case, and a second phone call confirms K.’s position. K tries to walk up to the Castle the following day but instead gets lost in the maze of streets in the village. He rests in a village house where the inhabitants know who he is but throw him out. He meets his assigned assistants, Artur and Jeremias, who are playful but useless. K then meets a messenger, Barnabas, who brings him a letter from Klamm, a director at the Castle. K. tries to walk to the Castle again but ends up in Barnabas’s house. He meets his sister Olga, who accompanies him to the Gentlemen’s Inn. There, K. meets the barmaid Frieda, who is Klamm’s mistress.

During the evening, Frieda and K. become intimate, and Frieda declares she is leaving Klamm for K. The landlady of the Bridge Inn warns K. that he has done Frieda a disservice in taking her away from Klamm and that he must marry Frieda. K visits the village chairman, who tells him a surveyor is not required and explains in depth the long and tortuous bureaucratic process behind K.’s case and the loss of his file. He says K. will be treated courteously while they await an answer from Klamm. K. meets the Bridge Inn landlady again, and she tells him how Klamm broke her heart before her marriage and how she has never recovered. She agrees to try to set up a meeting with Klamm.

Meanwhile, K. meets a teacher who offers him a job as a school janitor. The conditions are poor, but Frieda persuades K. to take the job. K goes to the Gentlemen’s Inn to look for Klamm, but the director evades him. Instead, K meets a secretary there who tries to interrogate K. and take a deposition from him, but K. refuses. K receives a letter from Klamm praising him for his work as land surveyor, which K. has not done. K. goes to the schoolroom, where he must sleep, with Frieda and the ever-present assistants. They break into the woodshed to get wood to keep warm, and the next day the teacher sacks K. for this, after Frieda betrays K.’s guilt instead of allowing the assistants to be punished. K becomes increasingly suspicious of Frieda’s intentions toward him. K. agrees to help the mother of a boy, Hans Brunswick, who is sick. K. believes that she and her husband can help him reach the Castle.

K. visits Barnabas’s house in search of a reply from Klamm, and Olga tells him the long story of how a Castle official caused the ruin of the family, due to her sister Amalia not agreeing to give him sexual favors. Olga says the family are dependent on K. now because she has told him the story. Frieda leaves K. for Jeremias and returns to the inn because she believes K. has been unfaithful with Olga or Amalia. Jeremias tells K. that he and his brother were employed by the Castle to cheer K. up. K. is summoned to the Gentlemen’s Inn to meet an official named Erlanger. He falls asleep in the room of a secretary called Bürgel while the official tells K. he can help him. K. wakes and finds Erlanger, who directs him to ensure Frieda returns to the taproom. K. witnesses the chaotic distribution of files among the rooms along the corridor. K. gives up his fight to reach the Castle and meet Klamm, and is finally accepted by some of the villagers and offered lodging. The story ends mid-sentence.