This is the enigmatic ending of Der Prozess: “«Like a dog!» he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him”. The interpreters never stop ruminating on the meaning of Franz Kafka’s novel. Now it’s my turn. The purpose of this contribution is to analyse the role of shame in Kafka’s work and, more specifically, in Der Prozess. Shame is often understood as a passion that renders the subject passive and unable to act. My hypothesis is that shame can also be understood as a potentially emancipatory passion, since it can help to produce human solidarity. Based on this hypothesis, I propose an interpretation of Der Prozess that can explain the meaning of Josef’s shame at the moment of his execution.
