The Castle

These two means of communication are the physical representations of the disconnect between the Castle and the villagers. Instead of simple, clear, and punctual messages, all discourse by phone and letter is obstructive and ambiguous. Neither of these seemingly simple modes of correspondence works efficiently, leading to frustration and hopelessness in K. From his first night in the Bridge Inn, the maddening telephone conversations between the officials Schwarzer and Fritz set the tone for the rest of the story. First a call is made describing K.’s arrival, then in a second call K. is rejected, only to be accepted in a third. The language Schwarzer uses on the call is unnecessarily wordy and officious, and K. senses “a mixture of malice and caution” (4) in the call; he sees it as a sign of the “quasi-diplomatic training that even lowly people at the Castle like Schwarzer could draw on so freely” (4). In Chapter 2, K. tries to call the Castle himself, but on picking up the mouthpiece, he hears humming, like “singing, the singing of the most distant, of the most utterly distant voices” (20). Despite the call being answered, K. feels “against the telephone he was defenceless” (20). The chairman sheds light on how the telephone system functions in Chapter 5: “Well, this murmuring and singing is the only true and reliable thing that the local telephones convey to us, everything else is deceptive” (72). He goes on to say that the telephones are answered by “overtired officials” whose answers are nothing more than a joke. In typical fashion, though, he contradicts himself by saying that these telephone answers are of “real significance” (72). K. is left none the wiser, but his experience shows that the telephone will bring him no closer to the Castle. It is yet another manifestation of the distance between them and of one man’s powerlessness against the Castle’s considerable authority.

Likewise, K. suffers from the pointlessness of the letters and files and the messenger system that supposedly picks up and delivers them. K.’s only communication with Klamm is through letters, but their contents show that Klamm or whoever is writing the letters does not know what is happening in reality. Klamm’s second letter says, “The surveying work you have done so far meets with my approval” (118), when K. has not been able to take up his surveying post. K. tries to send a message back to the director but chooses to do so orally via Barnabas, saying, “I don’t want to write a letter, for it would once again travel along the endless path of the files” (122). He dictates a message to Barnabas using the same complicated, formal, impenetrable bureaucratic language that the Castle deals in: “He is obliged to make this request because all previous intermediaries have utterly failed, as proof of which he adduces to the fact that he has done no surveying so far” (121). K. goes on to state that he will use no more than 10 words in the interview he is requesting, which is an absurd idea. Barnabas fails to deliver any message, and Olga later reveals depth how challenging Barnabas’s post as a messenger is. Her description of the process of waiting for messages at the Castle, plus the scene that K. witnesses in the corridor where the files are distributed in Chapter 24, give K. a behind-the-scenes look at the utter chaos that prevails regarding written communication among the Castle officials. It is with resignation and despair that K. thinks, “That may well be my file” (279).