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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 sometimes cures Buergel's insomnia?

2. What are Barnabas' parents doing when K. arrives at the house?

3. What would happen to Amalia's father when he went into the Castle?

4. What was Amalia's father's profession?

5. What is Frieda doing when K. sees her at the Gentlemen's Inn?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does K. respond to what Barnabas tells him about the Castle?

2. How long does K. need to wait to see Erlanger?

3. How does K. answer Frieda's mother's objections about him?

4. What reason does Erlanger give K. the request Erlanger is making during the meeting?

5. At what event does Amalia's family's disgrace begin?

6. What does Barnabas' family think about his job with the Castle?

7. What is Frieda doing for Jeremias at the end of Chapter XXII?

8. What reason does Amalia give K. that he will have to come visit them more often?

9. What does Barnabas say about Klamm's appearance?

10. Why does K. stay in the corridor after his meeting with Erlanger?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss communication in the novel.

1) How does Klamm communicate with K. in the novels? What are the problems in this communication?

2) Can K. and Frieda truly communicate with each other in the novel? What are the stumbling blocks to communication between them?

3) How do the means of communication used by the Castle, such as the phone and messengers, emphasize its bureaucracy and its disconnectedness from reality? What role does communication play in the Castle's bureaucracy?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

The bureaucracy of the Castle seems to have no guiding force or leader, and is self-reinforcing, following only rules and regulations. Discuss the leaderless nature of the machine of bureaucracy.

1) Who assesses how well the bureaucracy of the Castle is functioning? What are the consequences?

2) How does the Castle itself function as a leader for the village? What are the consequences of the fact that the Castle is not a person, but an institution? What difference would it make if instead of a Castle, the village followed a King?

3) What controls the Castle? How is bureaucratic control different than control by a leader?

(see the answer keys)

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