In 1922, Kafka wrote a novel entitled 'The Castle'. How much of it is still relevant in the modern world?
The book follows K., a land surveyor who arrives in a village governed by an opaque and seemingly all-powerful bureaucratic authority centered in the Castle. Determined to justify his presence through reason and procedure, K. pursues permits, explanations, and official recognition, only to encounter contradictory rules, endless delays, and unclear chains of authority. Messages from the Castle are filtered through minor officials and messengers whose roles are ambiguous and whose statements often conflict, giving the impression of a meticulously ordered system that nonetheless resists logic. K.’s insistence on rational clarity exposes the gap between the bureaucracy’s formal appearance and its fundamentally irrational operation.
Crucially, the villagers themselves reinforce the system’s power by deeply respecting and rationalizing it. They accept bureaucratic confusion as a sign of higher wisdom, assuming that any apparent inconsistency must have a reason beyond their understanding. Rather than question the Castle’s authority, they internalize its rules and defend its officials, often viewing K.’s demands for clarity as naïve or disruptive. This collective belief sustains the illusion of bureaucratic order and allows the distant higher-ups to maintain their dominance without direct intervention.