Kafka often felt that he was always working towards something that he could never achieve. The same thing happens to K. in Kafka's unfinished novel The Castle. In The Castle K. finds himself trapped in a village ruled by a government that the villagers never hear from. Everyone K. asks has a different opinion on how the law works and how the government is run. From K.'s perspective the villagers are ignorant for trusting this government, but for him it does not matter. K. needs to meet with a government official to become a citizen. The castle where the rulers are located is at the end of town. K. begins to make his way towards it. After years of walking he is no closer than when he started.

What Kafka was thinking when he wrote this is that all our lives we are working to achieve something that we do not even understand.