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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. Where is Therese originally from?

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

3. What prevents Karl from escaping when he is sent inside to prepare Brunelda's bed for the night?

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

5. What comic detail is offered about the head porter's appearance?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe Karl's encounter with the policeman in the Ramses suburbs.

3. How does Therese's backstory support the idea that life for immigrants in America is difficult and somewhat dependent on sheer luck?

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

5. When Karl is looking through his trunk, what does he realize about the cap he is wearing?

6. Describe Robinson's appearance at the Occidental Hotel in Chapter VI, "The Robinson Affair."

7. What annoys Karl about finding the salami in his trunk in Chapter IV, "The March to Ramses," and what is the salami's eventual fate?

8. What two reasons does Robinson have for coming to see Karl?

9. What does Karl's first sight of Giacomo imply about working conditions in America?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay in which you create a continuum of Amerika's female characters--based on a single criterion of your choosing--and then explain what this ordering of the characters conveys about the role of women in this text. Include, at a minimum, the following characters in your discussion: Therese, Line, Klara, Johanna, Brunelda, and the head cook. Be sure to offer textual evidence to support your assertions.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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