Trapped in a Mousetrap: K's Struggles in Kafka's The Trial Modernists built on the chaos of the First World War seeking a philosophy that take into account the rampant destruction of the body and spirit of man. The end result was a patchwork of disconnection and inconsistencies. Modernists admit that they did not know: although they sought a higher meaning to life, most, if not all, failed in the attempt (Lewis 38). Instead, they were left, as Albert Camus put it, in a “strange state of mind. . . in which the chain of daily gestures is broken, in which the heart searches in vain for the link that will reconnect it" (Rhein 12). Like many modernist writers, Franz Kafka searches for the meaning of life in a world where God and religion are In particular, Kafka drew on his experiences living in a world consumed by fear and anticipation of an imminent totalitarian state that would emerge in the future (Kundera 90) and provided insight into the arbitrary violence of this world like fellow Czech writer Milan Kundera states: “In Kafka, the institution is a mechanism that obeys its own laws; no one now knows who programmed those laws and when they have nothing to do with human concerns and are therefore incomprehensible” (Kundera 90). It is evident that in Kafka's Trial, where an elusive justice system arbitrarily selects victims to torture and subsequently kill in the name of the State, Josef K. is one of the victims who accuse him of an unnamed crime his innocence in the justice system's spectacle, it becomes more apparent that there may be no absolute end to his struggle. The clues and indications he receives from people linked to the judiciary are not substantial, and in the end the...... middle of paper ......ala K. to frame him. Works Cited Kafka, Franz. The process. New York: Schocken Books, 1998. Print.Kundera, Milan. “Kafka's world”. The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), vol. 12, no. 5 (Winter, 1988), pp. 88-99. Network. April 11, 2014..Lewis, Pericle. Modernism, nationalism and the novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. pp. 38-39. Print.Rhein, Phillip H. "Chapter 2: The Absurd." Albert Camus, Rev. ed. Phillip H. Rhein. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Twayne's World Authors Series 69. Literary Resources from Gale. Network. 7 February 2011.Waterfield, Robin, trans. “Heraclitus of Ephesus”. The first philosophers: the pre-Socratics and the sophists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. 32-48. Press.