The Castle is unlike any novel I have ever read. This could be attributed to a number of things that makes the book difficult to follow. Kafka writes with a very muddled and confusing style-and example being that his main character is simply referred to with the letter "K" throughout the novel. Even fundamental facts about the main character that are very relevant to the story such as whether or not he is truly a land surveyor remain mysterious to the reader. Undoubtedly the biggest mystery of all, however, is the fact that the novel remains unfinished. The fact that the book lacks any sort of real conclusion allows us as the readers to try and imagine what sort of ending the book would have had Kafka finished the work. Another, perhaps more important quandary the lack of an ending leaves us in is discovering what Kafka's intention was when writing this novel. One of the book's easily identifiable purposes is to criticize the inefficiency of large bureaucracies. I believe that the other major purpose was to ridicule heavily stratified class structures.
             The Castle is a symbol of a massive, impersonal government that takes ages to get absolutely nothing accomplished. When Barnabas goes to the Castle, he is only allowed in what might be called the anteroom to the offices, which has a long table across the middle, at which officials read thick books. Whatever messages he delivers, he gets from the secretaries instead of from the officials themselves. This use of a middleman is a classic example of how governments use more people for a job than is truly necessary which only lengthens the time needed to take any sort of action. In order to determine the likelihood of Kafka criticizing the slow, disorganized manner in which the government works is to assess what kind of government was in power in Kafka's native Austria-Hungary.
             Franz Kafka was born just before the t
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