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The Castle
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Chapters 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “In the Schoolhouse”
K. finds Frieda and the assistants in the classroom gymnasium at the schoolhouse, which is cold and devoid of beds, with only one straw mattress available. Frieda has waited for K. to arrive to share the meal she has prepared. The assistants share it, too, with their usual antics. K. tries to persuade Frieda to stop encouraging them and to find a way of getting rid of them so the couple can be alone. Frieda remains unconvinced, and K. wonders if she is in league with the pair. The intense cold drives K. to get an axe and break into the woodshed, locked under the schoolteacher’s rule. He and the delighted assistants light the stove, and then K. and Frieda go to sleep. During the night, K. is awakened by one of the assistants in his bed. The mischievous boy had jumped into Frieda’s place when she vacated it to look for a rat. K. hits the assistant, but this leads to Frieda consoling him.
In the morning a farcical scene erupts when the four awake to find the stern young schoolmistress and a class full of laughing schoolchildren in the room. Chaos ensues as K., Frieda, and the assistants try to make themselves decent and clean up the remains of the previous night’s dinner, to the entertainment of the onlookers and the rising anger of the arrogant and vindictive schoolmistress. The teacher arrives and asks who broke into the woodshed. Frieda claims responsibility, but the assistants point the finger at K. The teacher believes Frieda and beats the assistants for lying, but Frieda takes pity on them and admits it was K. The teacher declares that K. is dismissed from the janitor’s position due to his “disgraceful dereliction of duty” (132). K. refuses to accept his dismissal, saying that he was not appointed by the teacher and therefore cannot be sacked by him. The teacher, the schoolmistress, and the children all move to the other school room after the teacher reminds K. of his previous unwise decision not to submit to questioning. He warns K. to “[t]hink this over carefully” (133).
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Assistants”
K. locks the assistants out of the room, but they noisily try to get back in. K. shouts that they are dismissed, but they are irrepressible. The teacher returns and tells K. to keep them quiet. K. informs him that he has sacked the assistants and the teacher tries to console them. Eventually he leaves, and K. closes the curtains.
K. observes the now quiet Frieda wearily making coffee. Her previous freshness and beauty are gone, in K.’s eyes. He wonders, “Or was the distance from Klamm the real reason for her decline?” (135). K. says Frieda is better off without him, back at the inn. Frieda romantically and passionately denies this with a long monologue about wanting to be alone with K. When the subject of Klamm comes up, K. questions Frieda’s attitude to the assistants and her divided loyalty. Frieda’s answers are long and contradictory. Finally, K. says, “You’re still Klamm’s mistress and not my wife by any means” (140). However, he still declares that Frieda means a lot to him and they resume the work of cleaning.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Hans”
A knock at the door brings a schoolboy from the next room, although K. had hoped it was Barnabas. The boy is charming and offers K. and Frieda help, feeling sorry for the way the schoolmistress treated them. On being questioned at length, he reveals he is Hans Brunswick, one of the children who was in the village house that K. first entered. He is the son of Otto Brunswick, a master shoemaker who supposedly supported the need for a surveyor.
Hans says his mother remembers K. and asks about him. However, Hans’s mother is sick and cannot be disturbed, and Hans’s father is angry at K. for intruding in their house. K. apologizes but says that maybe he can help Hans’s mother, and perhaps Hans’s father should let his mother take the fresher air up at the Castle, since she has the right to go there. K. offers to speak to Brunswick, but Hans says this will not be possible and seems to show fear of his father. The boy suggests that K. meet his mother the next day while his father is at the Gentlemen’s Inn. K. considers that Brunswick, although ill-disposed toward K. at the moment, could be a useful ally against the chairman, the teacher, and “all the official chicanery” (148) that stands between him and the Castle.
K. agrees to visit the boy’s mother the day after next. He will tell her that he also wants to speak to Brunswick, in case the man arrives while K. is there. The boy leaves happily.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Frieda’s Reproach”
The teacher returns and tells K. to hurry up with the cleaning and to bring him his luncheon from the Bridge Inn. K. retorts that he was dismissed, and the two have heated words about whether this is true. K. feels satisfied at the teacher’s final inconclusive position and decides to do as he is told to keep the peace. Since the discussion with Hans, K. feels “new, admittedly unlikely, entirely baseless but no longer forgettable hopes” (152) which “even half-obscured Barnabas” (152). K. feels the need to keep the janitor’s post, even if just to support Frieda, which is important to him.
Frieda, who has been silent, now asks why K. gives in to the teacher so much. In return, K. asks why she is quiet. At this, Frieda embarks on a lengthy monologue about how the landlady’s warnings about K. are starting to appear justified. Frieda, in the landlady’s words, accuses K. of using her to get close to Klamm. She postulates that K. stole her from Klamm to use her as a bargaining pawn to trade with him. And if Klamm doesn’t want her back, then “[her] true hell will begin, then, even more than before” (156). She remarks, “I will be your only possession, on which you are dependent, but at the same time a possession that has proved to be worthless” (156). K. says he only hears the landlady’s voice in what Frieda has told him. Frieda agrees; at first she totally rejected the landlady’s opinion, feeling that K. had sacrificed a lot for her and that she was a burden to him, but believing her love for him would carry them through. However, since the meeting with Hans, the importance of his mother to K. had become clear, and now she feels deceived and mistreated.
The conversation continues with Frieda vacillating between trust and suspicion of K.’s motives, and K. trying to convince her that they are together because they both want to be. K. admits that he is aiming for Klamm but says that this is not the basis for their relationship. K. leaves to get the teacher’s luncheon, passing one of the assistants on the way. From his semi-frozen position at the gate, the assistant implores K. for attention. K. reflects, “His stubbornness is exemplary” (161).
Chapters 11-14 Analysis
The focus of these chapters is K.’s relationship with Frieda and how it becomes strained. On moving into the schoolhouse, K. believes Frieda is still in love with him: “There was not a word, a hint, a sign to suggest she bore K. the slightest bitterness in her heart” (124), despite the fact that he tore her away from relative comfort in both of the inns. However, her light-hearted tolerance of the assistants’ misconduct is increasingly disconcerting to K. The events in the schoolhouse show the now-typical contradictory behavior of the characters in K.’s life. Frieda first takes responsibility for breaking down the woodshed door, but when faced with the possibility that the assistants will be punished for it, Frieda betrays K., thus revealing her divided loyalties. K. is hurt: “Frieda has sacrificed me to the assistants” (132). The assistants maintain their intrusive presence in K. and Frieda’s life from outside the schoolroom: “They kept this up a long time, despite the futility of their efforts” (135). Frieda becomes weary, and K.’s admiration of her starts to pall as his suspicion grows: “It had always been her freshness and resolve that had lent her paltry body a certain beauty, but now that beauty was gone” (135). Klamm’s pervasive presence in K.’s life is highlighted again as K. wonders whether he is losing interest in Frieda as her distance from Klamm grows. Klamm is mentioned over and over again in the long conversation between K. and Frieda in Chapter 12. His influence extends through the assistants, whom Frieda claims are Klamm’s emissaries. K. cannot escape Klamm’s power, even in the personal relationship that means most to him, though it is increasingly insecure.
Still, K. maintains some hope of reaching the Castle, and his arrangement to meet Hans’s mother and possibly his father is an example of his growing desperation to exploit any potential connection. Likewise, his obedience of the teacher’s orders is a result of his anxious belief that the chairman is looking upon him favorably. Ultimately, K. tells himself, all this is for Frieda, and at this point he gives her great importance in his life. Frieda, however, seems to be losing faith in K. and views him with growing skepticism. Frieda reports the Bridge Inn landlady’s strong suspicion that K. is using Frieda to reach Klamm. Frieda initially denies believing this herself, then accuses K. of using Hans to reach his mother: “That woman was your goal” (157). The whole of Chapter 14, entitled “Frieda’s Reproach,” is a continuous questioning of K.’s motives, emotions, and loyalties. Frieda’s own motives are again cast in doubt at the end of the chapter, when K. believes she is flirting with and luring Jeremias.
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