What is the most significant achievement of Kafka's story "The Trial?"Why is this an important example of modern literature, and how did Kafka's...

I would say that Kafka's work is so significant because it
brings to light what will mark "the end of progress" in Europe.  Into the vaulted
European literary and political tradition, one that stresses justice, fairness, and
other Enlightenment values that praise the efforts of the individual, Kafka's work puts
all of that on its head.  Instead of the transparent government and legal setting where
the rights of the individual are enshrined, Kafka renders a setting where trials are
arbitrary and power becomes the only constant.  Kafka's work depicts a condition whereby
progress and advancement have been replaced by a setting where individual consolidation
and government tightening of control is evident. Death squads and governmental controls
were not results of "science fiction" or something that is imaginary.  Rather, they
proved to be real, something that Kafka understood acutely. Josef K. knows not for what
he is on trial, and knows little else about the law.  He is a modern character,
industrious and efficient, but the guilty of a process that has started against him,
without him, yet concerning him.  The traditional and Enlightenment vision of the human
being is one who will, if acting in concert with social norms and expectations, find
success and redemption.  Josef does this, and yet does not receive this.  In such a
characterization, Kafka demonstrates that one of the most haunting premises of the
modern setting is that justice can be fleeting, redemption can be illusory, and that one
of the curses of modernity is the idea of not knowing "the gate to enter" with a
multiplicity of gates in front of us.  It is in this where Kafka's work speaks
loudest.