The Castle (titled Das Schloß in its original German version) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1922.
Dark and at times surreal, Kafka's novel The Castle is about alienation, the rule of bureaucracy and the hopelessness of man's attempts to stand against the system.
Story
The novel starts with K's arrival in a village that lies near a castle. The Castle seems to control the entire life of the village. He pretends that he was invited by the Castle's staff to perform a land survey, and surprisingly, the Castle's staff confirms it.
He stays in the village for some time, and tries to find his way to the Castle's officials, in order to get some information about the work he has to do, and permission to settle down.
The plot follows his attempts to find allies that would help him to reach the Castle officials.
On his way he encounters different characters, most of whom want something from him. Though he is lonely in a new and strange place, he is ambitious and spares no effort to achieve his goals.
As with Kafka's other novels, The Castle is unfinished, and halts abruptly.
Kafka's friend Max Brod, who published the novel after Kafka's death, later said that he discussed the novel with Kafka, and Kafka told him that he planned to end the novel with K. being told on his deathbed that though he had no legal claim to be there, he would be allowed to live and work in the village.
Analysis
Although The Castle is very limited in space and time, it has an epic feeling. Some critics say Kafka was trying to write the main work of his life.
Inspite of common motifs with other works of Kafka, The Castle is quite different from The Trial, Kafka's most famous novel. While K., the main hero of The Castle, faces similar uncertainty and difficulty to grasp the reality that suddenly surrounds him as Josef K., the main hero of The Trial, he seems to be more experienced and emotionally strong than Josef K.
On the other hand, while Josef K. surroundings stay familiar even when strange events befall him, K. finds himself in a new world whose laws and rules are unfamiliar to him.
A story similar to that of The Castle is told in the television series The Prisoner.