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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 is the weather like at the beginning of Chapter X?

2. When K. lights a match, who does he startle?

3. When K. returns to the inn after meeting with the chairman, what does the landlord ask him?

4. What is the chairman suffering from?

5. What photo does the landlady show K.?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Klamm look like?

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

3. What does K. praise Frieda for?

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

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

6. What do Artur and Jeremias know about land surveying?

7. What does the landlady say will happen to the record of K.'s talk with the gentleman?

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

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

10. How does the Castle react to inquiries about K. when he first arrives?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the setting of the novel.

1) Discuss the Castle as part of the setting of the novel. Why does the reader never visit the inside of the Castle? How does the reader learn about the Castle? What does the appearance and structure of the Castle say about it and about the village?

2) How does the setting of the village influence the novel?

3) Why do the inns become a major part of the novel's setting? What is the importance of the two inns in the novel?

4) What significance does the schoolhouse have as a setting?

Essay Topic 2

In the novel, the bureaucracy of the Castle is both very powerful and lacking in power. Discuss this dynamic.

1) In what ways is the bureaucracy of the Castle powerful? How does it control people's actions?

2) In what ways does the bureaucracy of the Castle lack power? How does K. manage to defy the bureaucracy?

3) How does the bureaucracy's power, and lack of power, affect Amalia and her family?

Essay Topic 3

In the novel, the motivations of people are often open to question. Discuss the significance of the ambiguity of characters' motivations.

1) Are K.'s motivations clear? What are his possible motivations for being with Frieda? Do his motivations make a difference? What do you think of K.'s argument that his motivations don't necessarily matter?

2) What are conflicting reports of Frieda's motivations? How ambiguous are her motives? How important is it that other people can't necessarily ever fully understand her motivations?

3) How does the obscurity of the workings of the Castle compare to the obscurity of the motives of the characters?

(see the answer keys)

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