The women

The women in Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial are mainly serve the role of K.’s helpers. This means that the women are relevant only because they are useful and that Kafka has transferred the purpose-orientated mentality of the court to interpersonal relationships. 

K. attempts to enter the court world by using others who can help him. He has two groups of mediators. On the one hand, there are the men (Huld, Titorelli, the examining magistrate, the prison chaplain) who could provide K. with access to the sphere of the court. On top of that, the male characters also work more or less directly with the law. On the other hand, there are the female characters (Fräulein Bürstner, the bailiff's wife, Leni), who are at most indirectly involved with the business of the court. 

Before we address the question of what role the women play in the context of the court, we must point out a particularly interesting characteristic. There are major differences between the women who exist in K.'s life before the trial (the mother) and the women who meet K. only after the arrest and in the city (all the other female characters). 

Before the trial 

In the countryside, interpersonal relationships are still intact. His mother had a husband, and now lives with her nephew who takes care of her. K.'s uncle lives in the country, is married, and has a daughter. When the uncle becomes active and introduces K. to Huld, he is then also concerned with a traditional value, namely the "good name" of the family and its "honor" (His Uncle, 13%).

 In contrast, the female characters in the city are single and childless. Here, then, K. contrasts a traditional, patriarchal form of rule with a thoroughly structured, bureaucratic world in which people serve a specific function. This also becomes clear in K.'s case. He is single, has no children, and apparently has no problems with his life as a bachelor.

The most important female characters are Fräulein Bürstner, the bailiff's wife, and Leni, but there are also  others. These are, on the one hand, Frau. Grubach and K.'s mother, who represent mother figures, and Elsa and Erna. The mother figures do not appear as erotically attractive women and they stand in a kind of loving relationship to K.. K. obviously does not have a close relationship ...