In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

228 ARRAYS
Holding steady? Please make a note: buy one hundred shares tomorrow.
No-no premium. Cash, if possible. How's the market? Steady?
Thanks-I'm fine now. Yes, tomorrow in my office" (39-40).
Outside the world of bureaucracy and business, telephones assure the
presence and accessibility of power, and in doing so they invariably
establish hierarchical relations. In Franz Kafka's Das Schloss (The Castle),
K. has just arrived at the inn below the castle and is about to get
some rest after a long walk through the snow, when a young man comes
to him wishing to request formal permission to spend the night in the
village. K. firmly refuses to let the young man proceed with this requestuntil
he realizes that a telephone is hanging right above his head: "So
there was a telephone in this village inn? Evidently they maintained the
highest standards. This particular instance surprised K., but on the whole
he had expected it. The telephone seemed to be placed almost directly
over his head, and in his drowsy state he had overlooked it. If the young
man must telephone, he could not, even with the best intentions, avoid
disturbing K." (8). "On the whole," K. is not surprised by the presence
of a telephone, because he finds it natural for the castle to have power
over the village. Within this hierarchical relation, the world at the "upper"
end of the telephone line is itself hierarchically structured: "The
castellan was asleep, but an under-castellan, one of the under-castellans,
... was available." Once the question regarding the legitimacy of K.'s
presence in the village is passed on to the "central chancellery," the
young man hangs up the telephone. With growing apprehension and
with the admiration of a typical subaltern, K. waits for an answer: "Nor
was [the castle] lacking in industriousness: the central office had a night
service." The first call to come back from the castle confirms K. 's worst
fears: no one has been expecting him to arrive. "But the telephone rang
again-with special insistence, it seemed to K. Slowly he raised his head
[from the bed]. Although it was unlikely that this message also concerned
K., they all stopped short and [the young man] took up the receiver once
more. He listened for a fairly long time, and then said in a low voice: 'A
mistake, is it? I'm sorry to hear that. The head of the department himself
said so? Very odd, very odd. How am I to explain it all to the land
surveyor?'" (9). [see Silence vs. Noise] All of a sudden, K. is in a position
of superiority vis-a-vis the young man who has made a formal request
to him-but K.'s role is by no means (and will never be) a role of agency.
Having wasted the first workday after his arrival, K. plans finally to