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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 does the landlady say about the landlord?

2. How does the landlady say she feels about K. staying at the inn?

3. Why does the teacher say the offer is a great favor?

4. Do the people in the house know about K.?

5. Where does K. say he could stay, if Frieda's mother kicked him out?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is K.'s attitude toward the gentleman in Chapter IX?

2. What message does K. send through Barnabas to Klamm?

3. What reason does K. give for refusing to let the assistants come back?

4. What is the landlady's relationship to Klamm?

5. What happens when K. first wakes up the morning after meeting Frieda?

6. Who are the people in the house K. stops at on his way toward the Castle?

7. How does the chairman characterize the Castle's bureaucracy?

8. What does K. suspect about Frieda, at the end of Chapter XII?

9. What happens between K. and the assistants after Frieda gets up in the middle of the night at the school?

10. What does K. call Artur and Jeremias and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss insults in the novel.

1) Amalia perceives the letter she receives as an insult. Why does she have this perception? How does she respond to it? Could it be interpreted in any other way? Would the rest of the culture see the letter as an insult?

2) Amalia insults both the official and the secretary when she tears up the letter and throws it at the secretary. How do their feelings of being insulted compare to Amalia's? What are the consequences of both insults?

3) In what other situations do characters feel insulted? What are the causes and results of insults, and what role does this play in the culture of the village?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss THE CASTLE as a religious allegory.

1) Considering The Castle as a religious allegory, what role does Klamm play? What does the nature of Klamm say about the author's viewpoint?

2) What role does the Castle bureaucracy play? Who do Klamm's representatives represent?

3) What moral dilemma does The Castle present about the nature of being good, based on K.'s arguments about intention?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the novel, bureaucracy causes obstructions for the characters. Discuss the obstructions of bureaucracy in the novel.

1) How does bureaucracy call K. to the town? How does it affect the plot?

2) Inside the Castle bureaucracy, is it possible to tell what actually happened and what is important? What is the significance of the obscuring nature of bureaucracy?

3) How do the inhabitants of the town view their own town's bureaucracy? What are the consequences of complaining about bureaucracy?

(see the answer keys)

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