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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What rule does Karl find out he has violated when he returns to his lift after escorting Robinson to the dormitory?

2. What does it mean that the head waiter has a "choleric" temperament?

3. What is the cause of the crowd gathering in the street outside the apartment on the first night that Karl spends there?

4. How did one of Brunelda's former servants lose his front tooth?

5. What were Delamarche and Robinson doing when they met Brunelda?

Short Essay Questions

1. What other locations is the description of the suburban Ramses apartment building meant to evoke, and what is the similarity between these locations?

2. Explain how Karl ends up losing the photograph of his parents.

3. How does the head cook try to soften the blow of Karl's dismissal?

4. What is ironic about Karl getting in trouble for being away from his lift?

5. Why does Karl have a hard time sleeping when he is living at the Occidental Hotel?

6. Describe Brunelda's personality.

7. How does Karl end up having a conversation with Therese in his room on his first night at the Occidental Hotel?

8. How does Karl try to improve his position in life while he is at the Occidental Hotel?

9. Describe Delamarche and Brunelda's relationship with their neighbors.

10. When Karl is worried about the vomit in the light shaft being noticed, how do his thoughts foreshadow his eventual fate?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Psychoanalyst and critic Jacques Lacan said that sometimes a distortion can present psychological truth more fully than a factually accurate depiction. How does this insight apply to Kafka's use of the grotesque in Amerika? Write an essay that explores Lacan's idea and then demonstrates how it applies to Kafka's use of the grotesque. Supply supporting evidence from throughout the novel, and cite any outside sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

The end of Kafka's novel introduces the Theater of Oklahama--but is there a sense in which the entire novel can be appropriately called "theatrical"? If so, what purpose would this serve? In what ways is Karl like a puppet or actor throughout the novel? In what ways are the other characters often like stock characters in a melodrama? In what way are the settings more like stage sets than like realistic settings? Write an essay in which you consider the novel's theatricality and what relationship this has to the novel's ending. Make sure that as you discuss theatricality in relationship to the novel's ending, you take and defend a clear position regarding whether the Theater of Oklahama has something to do with religion and an afterlife. Support your ideas with textual evidence.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that analyzes Amerika through the lens of Le Grand Guignol. Explain the hallmarks of this theatrical tradition and where they are seen, at minimum, in Kafka's settings, moods, and plot. Finally, explain what significance these similarities have to the book's overall meaning. Support your claims with evidence from the text.

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