![]() ![]() However, it is often Karl who voluntarily submits to such treatment (helping a drunk Robinson at the hotel rather than having him thrown out, paying for Robinson's taxi, travelling to Delamarche's home, resigning himself to stay in imprisonment). Specifically, within Amerika, a scorned individual often must plead his innocence in front of remote and mysterious figures of authority. The novel is more explicitly humorous but slightly more realistic (except in the last chapter) than most of Kafka's works, but it shares the same motifs of an oppressive and intangible system putting the protagonist repeatedly in bizarre situations. Only the first six chapters were divided and given titles by Kafka. Two large fragments, describing Karl's service with Brunelda, are extant, but do not fill up the gaps. The parts of the narrative immediately preceding this chapter are also incomplete. In enigmatic language, Kafka used to hint smilingly that within this "almost limitless" theatre his young hero was going to find again a profession, a stand-by, his freedom, even his old home and his parents, as if by some celestial witchery. From what he told his friend and biographer Max Brod, the incomplete chapter "The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma" (a chapter the beginning of which particularly delighted Kafka, so that he used to read it aloud with great effect) was intended to be the concluding chapter of the work and was supposed to end on a note of reconciliation. Kafka broke off his work on this novel with unexpected suddenness, and it remained unfinished. Brod donated the manuscript to the University of Oxford. The title Amerika was chosen by Kafka's literary executor, Max Brod, who assembled the uncompleted manuscript and published it after his death. Kafka's working title was The Man Who Disappeared ( Der Verschollene). In conversations Kafka used to refer to this book as his "American novel", later he called it simply The Stoker, after the title of the first chapter, which appeared separately in 1913. Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a "technical worker." He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys and adopts the name "Negro" as his own. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone. ![]() ![]() One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. On the balcony, he chats with a student who tells him he should stay, because it is hard to find a job elsewhere. He tries to break out, but is beaten by Delamarche and Robinson. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay and he is imprisoned in her apartment. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Delamarche is now staying with a wealthy and obese lady named Brunelda. Afraid of losing his job if seen talking with a friend, which is forbidden for lift-boys, Karl agrees to lend him money, then commits the far worse offence of bunking a drunk-sick Robinson in the lift-boy dorm.īeing dismissed for leaving his post, Karl agrees not only to pay for Robinson's taxi, but also joins him. One day Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Finally, Karl departs from them on bad terms after he's offered a job by a manager at Hotel Occidental. They promise to find him a job, but they sell his suit without permission, eat his food in front of him without offering him any, and ransack his belongings. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle's friend without his uncle's full approval. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. In a surreal turn of events, Karl's uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him together they go to see the captain of the ship. As the ship arrives in the United States, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. The story describes the bizarre wanderings of sixteen-year-old European immigrant Karl Roßmann, who was forced to go to New York City to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. Plot summary The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled " The Stoker". The commonly used title Amerika can be traced to the edition of the text put together by Max Brod, a close friend of Kafka's during the latter's lifetime, after Kafka's death in 1924. The novel incorporates many details of the experiences of his relatives who had emigrated to the United States. The novel originally began as a short story titled " The Stoker". Amerika, also known as The Man Who Disappeared, The Missing Person and as Lost in America (German: Der Verschollene), is the incomplete first novel by author Franz Kafka (1883–1924), written between 19 and published posthumously in 1927.
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