On the day of his thirtieth birthday, Joseph K. was arrested. Accused of a fault he ignores by judges whom he never sees and in accordance with laws that nobody can teach him, he will push a bewildering number of gates to try to unravel the situation. As the trial grows in its life, each open door is a more alienating closure of the world of judicial proceedings, a true source of confinement and claustrophobia. For a year, an empty instruction of events follows its course under the impotent eyes of K., whose lucidity remains derisory and useless in the face of an implacable judicial machine. The trial, a pivotal piece in the work of this genius, renounces the supernatural to evoke the anguish of obsession.