In the story The Judgement by Franz Kafka, the role of the friend in St.Petersburg is to emphasize the lifestyle of Georg. If the story did not include the friend, Georg’s lifestyle may seem normal to an average person. The friend can be a character that is easy to compare with Georg.The friend in St.Petersburg remains mostly a mystery to the reader because of the constant indefinite adjectives to describe the friend. He is pictured as a man with “a fully exotic beard poorly concealing the face” and to be a “big child” (57 and 58). The friend remains as a blur to the readers because he is never one adjective. He mingles between two words that contradicts each other and remains there. However, Georg draws a line between who he is and who he is not. He tells himself “That is how I am, and that is how he must take me, I cannot tailor myself into a person who might be more suitable for a friendship with him than I am” (61).
Georg and his friend can be also seen as complete opposites. Georg is successful, but his friend has “fled” to Russia and hasn’t been as successful as Georg. Georg can be seen as having a social life compared to his friend who has “no real ties with the local colony of his compatriots and almost no social dealings with native families” (58). Georg was about to get married and his friend was seen as a “bachelor for good” (58).
Georg’s success, his friendships and his marriage all seem normal and definite whereas his friend lives in a blurry world. By comparing Georg and his friend side by side, Georg’s characteristics are shown better.