EL CASTILLO
Les clés du Château
Le Château de Kafka commenté par Jean-Pierre Morel, professeur émérite de littérature comparée à la Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III, est une des dernières publications de la collection Foliothèque dont l’objectif est de disséquer et d’étudier dans leur ensemble et en détail les œuvres, pour la plupart des grands classiques, en plus du texte lui-même.
La précisons et la richesse des commentaires apportées dans cette analyse sur le troisième roman de Kafka apportent une aide très appréciable pour entrer dans cette œuvre à bien des égards énigmatique. Les références indiquées en début d’ouvrage rappellent les différentes versions du Château ainsi que les traductions utilisées pour l’étude de ce roman inachevé.
«Un troisième roman»
Un premier chapitre introductif offre une synthèse en trois temps de la genèse de ce roman. L’auteur revient sur la dimension cachée, secrète de l’écriture du troisième roman de l’auteur pragois. Sous forme de question (Fable ou roman ?), J.-P. Morel insiste avec d’autres critiques sur l’importance de l’interprétation dans Le Château et cite en ce sens C. Bernheimer: « Une bonne part de la puissance de l’effet produit par le texte typique de Kafka vient de l’intensité avec laquelle il appelle l’interprétation et nous en frustre en même temps ». La suite de l’analyse du comparatiste est ainsi en grande partie consacrée à cette double stratégie.
«Aux destins croisés»
Le deuxième chapitre procède à une étude poussée des techniques narratives employées par Kafka. Les jeux de focales, les analepses ainsi que la polyphonie du récit mis en évidence par J.-P. Morel contribuent largement à ce paradoxe central du roman : interpréter toujours et à nouveau alors que toute possibilité d’interprétation se dérobe au lecteur.
«Le château et son double»
Le troisième chapitre tente d’analyser ce que représente ce château ainsi que les représentants de ce lieu. Ce lieu constitue en effet une sorte d’utopie et l’horizon d’attente annoncé par le titre du roman est à chaque fois retardé voire n’apparaît jamais comme le note J.-P. Morel: «Finalement, le lecteur se voit frustré de ce que le titre pouvait lui faire espérer». Cette dimension inaccessible du Château est notamment redoublée par le personnage Klamm comme le montre le comparatiste.
«Entre village et château»
Le quatrième chapitre s’intéresse plus particulièrement aux objectifs de K.. J.-P. Morel essaie, à l’aide d’autres critiques, de cerner l’objet du voyage voire de la quête de K. Plusieurs hypothèses sont évoquées comme celle de Gerhard Neumann qui pense que le héros / anti-héros du Château cherche à « s’approprier par arpentage le lieu étranger dans lequel il est venu » et à «trouver son identité dans ces actes d’appropriation territoriale» ; il veut «faire de l’étranger sa patrie» Dés lors, la quête de K. pourrait être qualifiée au sens le plus large de quête initiatique.
«Profession: arpenteur?»
La question de la profession de K fait d’ailleurs l’objet du cinquième chapitre. Après avoir rappelé les discussions du village à propos de la venue d’un arpenteur, J.-P. Morel reconstitue la cause de la venue de K. dans le village en analysant un souvenir de son enfance, le seul qui est raconté en détail dans le roman. Cette partie est l’occasion pour l’auteur de souligner toutes les significations possibles du terme de «Landvermesser» en allemand. Même si le terme signifie à l’origine «celui qui travaille à mesurer la terre» (vermessen), le même mot employé comme adjectif désigne un homme présomptueux, téméraire, enclin à l’outrecuidance (die Vermessenheit). Comme l’a déjà analysé H. Politzer, celui qui, par profession, fait des mesures est donc ici hanté par la démesure, la transgression, l’excès.
«Figures du pouvoir»
Les figures du pouvoir, centrales dans le roman, sont l’objet du sixième chapitre. La relation entre individu et bureaucrates constitue un aspect essentiel de ce roman qui revêt une dimension politique où le fonctionnement d’une administration menace l’individu. Pour Milan Kundera, comme l’indique J.-P. Morel, la «dépersonnalisation de l’individu» est l’un des principaux traits du «kafkaïen» et plus particulièrement du Château qui dénonce un processus qui affecte de plus en plus de sociétés. Cette dimension politique se manifeste également par le rôle des femmes et du sexe qui, comme le démontre l’auteur, est un des rouages les plus actifs de la marche de l’administration.
«Un roman d’amour?»
Cette réflexion sur le pouvoir et les femmes conduit J.-P. Morel à s’interroger sur le roman comme roman d’amour dans la septième partie de cet ouvrage. La relation entre Frieda et K. occupe une grande partie de cette analyse, relation qui peut être qualifiée selon J.-P. Morel d’histoire d’amour dont les autres romans de Kafka sont d’ailleurs dépourvus. L’auteur insiste dans son étude sur l’ambiguïté de cette relation. Il reste en effet difficile de savoir si elle est ou non guidée par l’intérêt. Il pourrait en effet s’agir d’une poursuite de l’élection, du combat de K. pour se faire reconnaître singulier et différent.
«Les acolytes»
Le huitième chapitre est consacré à deux personnages ambigus du roman : les acolytes de K. : Arthur et Jérémie. Alors qu’ils sont destinés à aider K. dans sa tâche d’arpenteur, le lecteur assiste à une métamorphose de la fonction des assistants. Ceux-ci deviennent peu à peu des espions infiltrés dans la vie privée de K. qui souffre de cette violation de sa solitude, si importante pour lui voire «essentielle» pour reprendre l’expression de Maurice Blanchot, l’un des plus grands commentateurs de l’œuvre de Kafka. La fin du chapitre développe le rôle controversé, ambigu de Barnabé lié à K. par une double dépendance. Comme le montre J-P. Morel, le messager et son destinataire représentent l’un pour l’autre une forme de torture par l’espérance.
«Lignes de fuite»
L’avant-dernier chapitre tente de dégager des « lignes de fuite » (Deleuze et Guattari) qui émergent de l’intérieur même de l’action comme d’une part le récit d’Olga (Chapitre XV) et d’autre part la rencontre de Bürgel (Chapitre XVIII).
«On écrit beaucoup ici»
Après avoir cerné de plus près ces «lignes de fuite», l’ultime chapitre conclut en montrant une dimension plus poétologique du roman. «On écrit beaucoup ici» : cette phrase prononcée par K. en regardant de loin les papiers de Momus peut être interprétée comme un aveu littéraire de Kafka sur son roman qui met indéniablement en jeu des images de l’écriture littéraire. K. peut être à bien des égards considéré come le portrait en action du lecteur aussi bien que de l’écrivain. Les thèses de Marthe Robert4 et Maurice Blanchot sont exposées dans ce chapitre: l’un défendant la thèse d’un K. «arpenteur des livres comme Don Quichotte en est le chevalier errant», l’autre soulignant que le roman de Kafka, avant de se mesurer aux différents genres du roman et à l’épopée homérique, se confronte à «trois mille ans d’écriture judaïque». Quant à J.-P. Morel, il souligne la ressemblance des bureaucrates avec des «doubles noirs» de l’écrivain car ce rapprochement a été selon lui moins souligné. Le Château peut être en effet envisagé comme une «parabole de l’activité littéraire», de façon plus modeste et moins dramatique, comme l’explique Pierre Pachet dans La Force de dormir: «dans les heures de la nuit qu’il passe à sa table de travail, l’écrivain sans autorité montre qu’il a besoin tour à tour de la vigilance et de la somnolence».
Thibaut Chaix-Bryan
— Fabula
The Meaning of Meaning in Kafka's The Castle
1. The Question of Transcendence
The Castle is Franz Kafka's most humanistic work, virtually the only one in which the protagonist forms continuous, close relationships with other characters, including love. As in many of his other works, the protagonist is on a quest for a goal that proves unattainable. But in The Castle, K. becomes seriously and deeply involved with the lives of the people in the village. The Castle puts the question of meaning within a social context, where it rightfully belongs.
The novel revolves around two main poles: the protagonist, who is the narrative center for the reader, and the Castle, which seems to be the source of meaning for the characters in the novel, especially K. The ambiguity surrounding the Castle (as well as the obscurity of K.'s motivations) raises the question of what transcendence actually means, the meaning of meaning. While all serious art addresses this question implicitly, Kafka makes it central and explicit. Despite (or because of) the ambiguity of his works, Kafka is like an archer who shoots straight for his mark, the unspoken axis upon which culture turns.
By equating transcendence with meaning, of course, I already assume a rudimentary definition of meaning; but I share this assumption with the novel. Meaning is transcendent because its source is above and beyond; while it is true that K. seeks the domestic goals of job, home, and family, the achievement of his goals depends upon the Castle, which is literally above and beyond the village, remaining more or less inaccessible to the villagers. The concept of transcendence implies that there is something to be transcended or gone beyond. In The Castle, K.'s quest requires overcoming various obstacles, the chief of which is the distance between village and Castle. K. essentially seeks sanction from the Castle, independently of his other goals; meaning requires validation from a locus external to the self and the immediate community.
Transcendence has a traditional association with the sacred. We make no great leap by seeing the Castle as occupying the place of the sacred in a traditional society (i.e., one which respects sacred distinctions and authority), which the village seems to be. The quasi-supernatural elements in the story, Jeremiah's magical transformation and so on, are by definition sacred. And the virtually religious awe with which the villagers regard the Castle also supports this association. From an anthropological perspective, the sacred is the original form of the meaningful, and the ambiguity of the Castle can be viewed as a modern version of the well-known ambivalence of the sacred.(1) This preliminary understanding of the Castle avoids the debate about whether the Castle represents God or is inhabited by "Gnostic demons" (Heller 76), supernatural good or supernatural evil. From our perspective, these are two sides of the same coin.
The Castle is a novel, but its setting, form, and content call to mind medieval romance and quest-narratives. The village sits on Castle land, and the Castle governs the village as in feudal times (although the extent of its power in the village is an open question). The setting is otherwise ambiguous; while there are references to Count Westwest and a Castellan, the main representatives of the Castle are characterized as "officials," as with a modern government bureaucracy. The medieval elements of the novel evoke a world in which hierarchy and authority are taken for granted, as indeed the authority of the Castle is assumed by all the villagers with the possible exception of Amalia. Although he sometimes questions the justice of its actions, K. also takes the authority of the Castle for granted. Moreover, he is deeply attached to the village and obsessed with the Castle, suggesting that the novel is nostalgic for a world in which divine hierarchy structures human relations.
René Girard has not written on Kafka in any detail, but he suggests clearly that Kafka's fiction represents what he characterizes as the modern, post-Christian world of internal mediation and frustrated transcendence (DDN 266, 286-7, 308-9). Bruce Bassoff's essay "The Model as Obstacle: Kafka's The Trial" fruitfully explores internal mediation in that novel, substantiating Girard's hints about Kafka. As we will see, The Castle does present a world distinguished by internal mediation but not, in the final analysis, frustrated transcendence. The interpretive problem here is that the characters in the novel and the critics are looking for transcendence in the wrong places. I will show that The Castle models an alternative form of transcendence from a perhaps surprising source that previous critics have not considered or recognized as such. In this way, Kafka's novel goes beyond Girard's dichotomy of mensonge romantique and vérité romanesque (DDN 16-17), providing a valuable insight into the very origin of language.
2. The Castle
What is the Castle? This is the main question of the novel, both for readers and characters, although the characters never pose the question quite so directly, focusing instead on more immediate goals that invariably involve the Castle. In the famous opening of the novel, the Castle is ominously present even in its absence:
It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village was deep in snow. The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there. On the wooden bridge leading from the main road to the village, K. stood for a long time gazing into the illusory emptiness above him. (3)
The gothic description of the Castle hill as "hidden, veiled in mist and darkness" suggests an element of secrecy and perhaps deceit in the Castle's presentation. Does the Castle inhabit an "illusory emptiness" or is it merely an empty illusion? Despite the darkness, K. is clearly aware of the Castle. Indeed, why else would he stand "for a long time gazing" into the darkness above him? The Castle is the fundamental goal of K.'s quest from its beginning.
The next morning he sets out from the Bridge Inn and sees "the Castle above him, clearly defined in the glittering air" (11). This clarity, however, is deceptive. At first, "this distant prospect of the Castle satisfied K.'s expectations," despite its appearance as "a rambling pile consisting of innumerable small buildings closely packed together" (11). But in the following paragraph, upon closer approach, K. is "disappointed in the Castle; it was after all only a wretched-looking town, a huddle of village houses, whose sole merit, if any, lay in being built of stone; but the plaster had long since flaked off and the stone seemed to be crumbling away" (11-12). The Castle's appearance is decidedly at odds with its power and authority in the village. But in regard to the Castle, appearances are always deceptive and subject to revision.
After viewing the Castle, K. thinks of his hometown, and
in his mind he compared the church tower at home with the tower above him. The church tower, firm in line, soaring unfalteringly to its tapering point, topped with red tiles and broad in the roof, an earthly building—what else can men build?—but with a loftier goal than the humble dwelling houses, and a clearer meaning than the muddle of everyday life. (12)
At home, in former times, the sacred occupied a well-defined place in relation to the human community: the church tower is rooted in the "earthly" yet soars "unfalteringly" heavenward, with "a clearer meaning than the muddle of everyday life." This description suggests a cosmic order well justified by the spiritual nobility symbolized by the church tower. The novel contrasts this idealized symbol from the past with the Castle's tower in the novel's present:
The tower above him here—the only one visible—the tower of a house, as was now evident, perhaps of the main building, was uniformly round, part of it graciously mantled with ivy, pierced by small windows that glittered in the sun—with a somewhat maniacal glitter—and topped by what looked like an attic, with battlements that were irregular, broken, fumbling, as if designed by the trembling or careless hand of a child, clearly outlined against the blue. It was as if a melancholy-mad tenant who ought to have been kept locked in the topmost chamber of his house had burst through the roof and lifted himself up to the gaze of the world. (12)
In this remarkable passage, the tower starts off sounding relatively innocuous, even promising, with the "ivy" which "graciously mantled" the "uniformly round" tower; but by the end of the passage we face a tower designed by a careless child, unable to conceal any longer the madman within. The sacred is no longer contained within established boundaries; it has escaped with horrifying consequences. The comparison with a lost past suggests a fallen world, but in a modern, alienated incarnation—a world in which the dangerous power of the sacred has been liberated from the constructive channels of the medieval cosmos.
There is a definite hierarchy between village and Castle, but the exact nature of the Castle's authority remains obscure. Significantly, the boundary between the village and the Castle is hard to define. Schwarzer, the son of an under-castellan, reminds K. upon his arrival, "whoever lives here or passes the night here does so, in manner of speaking, in the Castle itself" (4). And the schoolteacher remarks, "There is no difference between the peasantry and the Castle" (14). Yet when K. sets out to reach the Castle on his first day in the village, it recedes, like the horizon to the traveler, ever farther into the distance. Communication with the Castle is difficult if not impossible. The Castle is seemingly everywhere and nowhere, more threatening precisely through its silence.
The only villagers who reportedly have visited the Castle are K.'s assistants and the messenger Barnabas, who sees only the outermost rooms. The main points of contact between the villagers and the Castle are the officials and their servants, who travel back and forth between the village and the Castle, staying at the Herrenhof Inn when in the village. The servants, freed from Castle regulations, are "ruled by their insatiable impulses" (285) in the village, drinking, dancing, sleeping with prostitutes, and harassing the Herrenhof's barmaid Frieda, who characterizes Klamm's servants as "the most contemptible and objectionable creatures" she knows (51). The officials spend their time at the inn reading files, interviewing villagers, and occasionally taking a break from their intellectual work with hobbies, like carpentry, involving physical activity. When K. looks through the peephole at Klamm, he appears awake, but Frieda reports that he was actually asleep: "the gentlemen do sleep a great deal. It's hard to understand" (51). Up in the Castle, Barnabas reports that the officials spend the day crowded behind a long desk, reading large books and dictating to clerks occasionally in a barely audible whisper (233). What concrete purpose the officials' activities serve is obscure. It's hard to imagine that governing a village requires such an apparently vast bureaucratic apparatus. The narrator, echoing K., thinks, "all [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters" (74), suggesting that the Castle is ruled by self-interest rather than public advantage.
The main concrete action of the Castle officials appears to be sleeping with the young women of the village, who are eternally grateful for any contact with them. Ironically, sleeping with an official makes a young woman "respectable" (48, 307). Gardena, the landlady, finds great comfort in remembering her brief time as Klamm's mistress. But the officials are not outwardly attractive: grotesque in appearance (in the case of Sortini), middle-aged or elderly, tyrannical, abrupt, rude, and occasionally brutal. They are reportedly so "sensitive" as to find the sight of a stranger unbearable, "at least unless they were prepared for it" (44).
Is it possible to distinguish the officials from the Castle itself? We might assume a difference between the officials in their public role and their "private" actions, such as ordering the young women to their beds. But in fact, the villagers never make any such distinction. In a deleted section of the novel, when K. attempts to do so, Gardena reproves him: "one cannot say of a real official that he is sometimes more and sometimes less of an official, for he is always an official, to full capacity" (438). The actions of the officials are of supreme importance, and there is no difference, for the villagers, between their public and private lives. For all practical purposes, the officials are the Castle.
Given the behavior of the officials (from offensive to incompetent), the question is why they enjoy such uniform, unquestioned respect among the villagers. Why is Amalia's rejection of an official so abhorrent in their eyes? In a traditional society, the villagers or peasants often idealize the far-off Lord or King while resenting intensely the immediate overlords. But even the lowliest officials are both feared and respected in Kafka's village. K. finds Sortini's behavior abhorrent, but he is an outsider, and even he never questions the power of the authorities; the Castle always remains as the firm goal of his quest. [...]
Peter Goldman
— Anthropoetics
The Superintendent Scene: What It Throws Up
Intro
The story of The Castle proper begins with the scene with the Superintendent, who is known in some translations as the Mayor. It is in this chapter, it seems to me, that the story really starts. From here come many of the images and exchanges which people associate with the book. It occurs a few chapters in, just after K. has met Frieda and is ensconced with her at the Bridge Inn.
The scene sets up the plot of The Castle, in so far as there is one. K. is living with Frieda and pursuing official recognition through Klamm. It is in relation to this set-up that everything happens. K. seems to be at his happiest at this point, although married life with Frieda is never exactly happy, and he does not make any headway with Klamm. It is the inaccessibility of Klamm that makes him so important to K.
But this scene is also in its way a distraction. The Superintendent is K.'s immediate superior, according to the letter, and yet the meeting with him does not get K. any closer to Klamm. If anything it leads directly to the offer of employment at the school, which the Superintendent alights on as a way of keeping K. out of mischief.
Incompetence
The Superintendent cannot find the original letter which dealt with the summoning of a land surveyor-this document is unnecessarily pursued during the chapter-and indeed he appears somewhat weighed down by the sheer volume of administration with which he has to deal. He is very ill, and this illness is clearly brought on by the mountain of work with which he has to cope. The Bridge Inn landlady observes subsequently that it is only down to Mizzi that the Superintendent has his job. K.'s reaction to her is to note how insignificant she looks, the relevant point is that he notices her insignificance, which implies that she is not insignificant at all. Unlike the Superintendent who just lets her look after him while he lies in bed, she is very busy.
We can compare the Superintendent with Bürgel, who features later in the book. Bürgel despite his complaints about the amount of work he has to do nevertheless keeps his work in order and is up-to-date with it. This is because he is very hard working, but also as we can surmise because he organises it intelligently. The Superintendent lets it get out of hand by being over-pedantic and getting bogged down in detail. To him being Superintendent is a way of being important, as he loses no opportunity to make clear to K.
The story he tells is an illustration of this point. His attempt to scupper the attempt to appoint a land surveyor from the start, no doubt because it will mean more work, is precisely the reason why the question grows out of all proportion. His pompousness and exaggerated view of his position leads him to send a covering letter with the letter, and it is the covering letter arriving without the original letter that engenders the long correspondence with Sordini.
Gardena
Bürgel is healthier than the Superintendent probably because he willingly throws himself into his work, because he regards the work as important in itself. Another point of contrast with the Superintendent is Gardena, the Bridge Inn landlady, who also throws herself into her work but grows prematurely old because of it. The reason why she grows old is that for her the work and the great effort she puts into it are ways of forgetting about frustrated love.
The scenes with the Superintendent and Gardena form a pair. They come back to back and have similar structures. One is about the official side of the Castle; the other about the personal. In both a person in bed tells K. a story from their past that has led to their being ill in bed. (Sordini has undoubtedly exhausted the Superintendent.) The landlady's is twenty years old; the Superintendent's only six months. Both scenes are interrupted by the assistants and conclude with K. asking about Klamm in other respects and being rebuffed. In both cases the interlocutors are opening themselves up to K. as a way of stopping him from doing anything.
The story of the landlady is interesting because of what she inadvertently reveals. She spends much time talking with Hans about Klamm and the reason for his not summoning her a fourth time. But it is clear if we read between the lines why Klamm stopped seeing her. The three mementoes by which she holds such store are the reason. She observes that Klamm gives nothing of his own accord but if one sees something lying around one can get it out of him. She let the mementoes come in the way of the relationship. This is also the reason why she is so tied to them and why she is not strong enough to get over the ending of the relationship.
Her language also makes this clear. She speaks of being summoned by Klamm as an honour. She thinks in terms of honour, not of love. That Klamm summoned her is an honour no one can deprive her of. She has to make it important. The idea of honour and status helps her forget the real significance of what she has done-she makes a routine out of something that for her went badly wrong. This is why she hates Amalia so much. Amalia has punctured this bubble and acted as she sees it dishonourably. Because Gardena has not respected love she resents Amalia's doing so, since that reminds her of what she really did.
One interesting aspect which K. brings out is the influence of Klamm. She is at pains to refute the view that Klamm used his influence to help her, but what K. is saying is that Klamm's influence lies in the personal power he had over her, as evinced by all the subsequent events such as marrying Hans. This is the power that love has, a theme that is developed elsewhere in The Castle.
Before the Superintendent scene
The scene with Gardena marks the point at which K.'s last hour in the Bridge Inn has come. That happens because he refuses to wait for a week while the landlady tries to arrange an audience with Klamm for him.
The scene with the Superintendent is K.'s first proper contact with the authorities, and it is the only one he has while living at the Bridge Inn. As his first proper contact it is very important for him. When he first meets the Superintendent both engage in what sounds like a rehearsed exchange. K. had expected something like the response he gets, we are told. [...]
Roderick Millar
— Kafka: The Clattering Mill
Panopticism and the Construction of Power in Franz Kafka's The Castle
This enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead-all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism.
In his "Panopticon; or, The Inspection House" (1791), Jeremy Bentham expounded his theories for the construction of an ideal prison system-the Panopticon-following a precise architectural model.1 Bentham envisioned the Panopticon as consisting of a central watchtower surrounded by a circular row of cells permanently exposed to the unseen Inspector in his lodge. This prison would operate on the assumption that fear of being watched would lead the inmates not only to incorporate the rules but to regulate their own behavior as well. Bentham did not restrict his ideal to the building of a penitentiary-house, but extended its application to any of a number of institutions built under the same principles and with a similar purpose, "whether it be that of punishing the incorrigible, guarding the insane, reforming the vicious, confining the suspected, employing the idle, maintaining the helpless [...]" (Bentham 34, emphasis original). Nor did he limit his plans to a carceral structure or correctional facilities, either, but went even further by formulating a Utopian vision of a Panopticon town as a self-sustaining unit of production that would include factories, schools, churches, and hospitals. Following utilitarian principles, Bentham sought to conflate a moral purpose with notions of productivity in a model whose final aims were "punishment, reformation and pecuniary economy" (Bentham 50).2
Written in 1922, and published posthumously in 1926, Franz Kafka's The Castle portrays a world seemingly controlled by whimsical leaders and absurd rules. As K,, land-surveyor and unwelcome guest in the village near the Castle, endeavors to reach his goals-the Castle itself and the elusive Director Klamm-questions arise regarding the ultimate source of power, the means of rule-enforcement, and the terms of the relationship between villagers and officials in the prison-like world created by Kafka. Regardless of who or what is in control of the Castle, of the village, and of K.'s actions, the power structures are kept in place by the pervasive fear of a ubiquitous bureaucratic system and by the threat of a punishment that is seldom actually administered or experienced.
In his analysis of The Castle, Michael Löwy asks, "what if the Castle did not symbolize something else but was just a castle, that is to say the seat of an earthly authority?" (50).3 Thus Löwy points to the need to produce interpretations of the novel that do not rely exclusively on symbolic or allegorical meanings. This article seeks to identify those structural elements that enable the construction and functioning of authority in the Castle, examining how it works rather than what it stands for. I maintain that Kafka's Castle operates on the basis of panoptic principles, relying on an authoritarian regime and permanent surveillance for the sake of individual discipline and social stability. Tracing the numerous parallels between the Castle and Bentham's Panopticon serves a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it reveals the organizing principles beneath the apparently haphazard and absurd structure of the Castle; on the other hand, it uncovers the contradictions and limitations intrinsic to the Benthamite carceral project.
The separation of the Castle-as-Panopticon from the village helps articulate two interrelated spaces-physical and mental-each reinforcing the other. The Castle occupies a central position in relation to the village, not because it lies at "its very geographical center," but because of its location at a vantage point from which control and authority can be established. The spatial distance between the two spaces defines the hierarchical division between the gentlemen and their social inferiors, and it incapacitates the villagers, preventing them from reaching the Castle. As K. sets off to reach the Castle, he notes that "[t]he street he had taken, the main street in the village, did not lead to the Castle hill, [. . .] and though it didn't lead any farther from the Castle, it didn't get any closer either" (10). K.'s observation focuses directly on structural elements in the design of the Castle that make it inaccessible to any but authorized persons.4 His description of its exterior, particularly of the tower, also presents striking similarities to Bentham's Panopticon. "The tower up here," K. says, "the tower of a residence as now became evident, possibly of the main Castle, was a monotonous round building [. . .] with little windows that glinted in the sun" (8). This portrayal coincides with Bentham's choice of the most suitable shape for the lodge. In one of his letters, he states, "As the general form of the building, the most commodious seems to be the circular" (43, emphasis original).5 And just as Bentham modeled his inspection tower after a church, the sight of the Castle tower brings to K.'s mind recollections of the church in his hometown. These considerations of shape and structure, nonetheless, take a secondary place in relation to the symbolic function of the building.
The Castle represents both a physical and symbolic structure; its physical presence corresponds to a psychic state determined by the symbolic value of the Castle-as-Panopticon. Unlike the Inspector's lodge in Bentham's scheme, which is permanently visible, the Castle seems to dissolve, and K. feels that "the longer he looked, the less he could make out, and the deeper everything sank into the twilight" (99). Even though the Castle disappears from K. 's range of vision, its hidden presence still exerts a powerful influence on his actions. That the Castle is felt rather than seen and that it shifts from a solid structure into a jumble of buildings serve as indications of its illusory nature. These attributes further support the notion that the effectiveness of the power held by the Castle and by the Panopticon does not necessitate their physical presence but depends on their ultimate psychic effects on the observers.
Much like its exterior, the Castle's internal structure appears to be a fiction staged for outsiders. In reference to his brother's experience at the Castle, Olga Barnabas comments, "He can enter an office, though it doesn't even seem to be an office but rather an anteroom to the offices, and perhaps not even that, perhaps it's a room intended for all those who aren't allowed into the real offices" (Kafka 181). Olga's words directly address the issue of reality and illusion in the villagers' perceptions of the Castle. In this respect, Reg Whitaker suggests that the Panopticon "is, at bottom, nothing more than sleight of hand." He adds, "But according to Bentham it creates a context in which the subjects have no alternative but to believe that appearance is reality" (35). Hence, the physicality of the Castle, like that of the watchtower in the Panopticon, matters to the villagers insofar as it represents the control without bounds that permeates their lives. The Castle resides primarily in their minds, governing their thoughts and determining their behavior, and it marks, symbolically, the site of the gaze that reaches them in any place at any given moment.
The crucial factor in panoptic surveillance and in the workings of the panoptic Castle does not lie in the intervention of the officials but in the operation of the gaze, that is, the ability of the Inspector-Director to see in all directions at all times.6 James Hurley argues, "The omnipresence of the panoptic eye ensures that each subject will always be on view, on display" (77). K.'s remarks on the panopticism of the Castle resonate with the qualities of Bentham's prison. As he stares at the Castle, he has a strong intuition, "as if he were watching someone who sat there calmly, gazing into space, not lost in thought and therefore cut off from everything, but free and untroubled; as if he were alone, unobserved; and yet it could not have escaped him that someone was observing him" (Kafka 98-99). The existence of an all-seeing observer, presumably Klamm, foregrounds the radical need for the internalization of rules and self-vigilance. In this regard, Jeffrey Reiman claims, "The very fact of general visibility-being seeable more than being seen-will be enough to produce effective social control. Indeed, awareness of being visible makes people the agents of their own subjection" (160, emphasis original). [...]
Corbella, Walter
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