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Amerika, also known as Der Verschollene or The Man Who Disappeared, was the incomplete first novel of author Franz Kafka, published posthumously in 1927. The novel originally began as a short story titled The Stoker. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
Kafka at the age of five Franz Kafka (IPA: ) (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. ...
In political geography and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government. ...
A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ...
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ISBN-13 represented as EAN-13 bar code (in this case ISBN 978-3-16-148410-0) The International Standard Book Number, ISBN, is a unique[1] commercial book identifier barcode. ...
A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ...
Kafka at the age of five Franz Kafka (IPA: ) (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. ...
Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Stoker is a short story by Franz Kafka. ...
Plot summary
- The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled "The Stoker".
The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a fifteen-year-old European emigrant named Karl Rossmann in the United States, who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ship arrives in America, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him; together they go to see the captain of the ship. In a surreal turn of events, Karl's uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl doesn't know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. The Stoker is a short story by Franz Kafka. ...
A European is primarily a person who was born into one of the countries within the continent of Europe. ...
Emigration is the action and the phenomenon of leaving ones native country to settle abroad. ...
A maidservant or in current usage maid is a female employed in domestic service. ...
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. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. They promise to find him a job, but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he's offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental. He works there as a lift-boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Robinson, in turn, gets injured after fighting with some of the lift-boys.
Being dismissed, Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson. Once at Robinson's place, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape.
One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this. 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.
Uncertainties
Title 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 has appeared separately in 1913.[1] Kafka's working title was "The Man Who Disappeared" ("Der Verschollene").[2] The title Amerika was chosen by Kafka's literary executor, Max Brod, who assembled the uncompleted manuscript and published it after his death.[3] The Stoker is a short story by Franz Kafka. ...
Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Max Brod Max Brod (May 27, 1884 – December 20, 1968) was a German-speaking Jewish author, composer, and journalist. ...
Ending Kafka broke off his work on this novel with unexpected suddenness. It remained unfinished. From what he told his friend and biographer Max Brod the incomplete chapter about 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 should end on a note of reconciliation. 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.[4] Max Brod Max Brod (May 27, 1884 – December 20, 1968) was a German-speaking Jewish author, composer, and journalist. ...
The parts of the narrative immediately preceding this chapter are also incomplete. Two large fragments, describing Karl's service with Brunelda, are extant, but do not fill up the gaps. Only the first six chapters were divided and given titles by Kafka.[5]
Major themes
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| The novel is more explicitly humorous and 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. Specifically, within Amerika, a scorned individual often must plead his innocence in front of remote and mysterious figures of authority.
Inspiration Kafka was fond of reading travel books and memoirs. Benjamin Franklin's biography was one of his favorite books, from which he liked reading passages aloud. He also always had a longing for free space and distant lands. But in reality he never travelled farther than France and Upper Italy.[6] Benjamin Franklin (January 17 [O.S. January 6] 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the most well known Founding Fathers of the United States. ...
Kafka, at the time, was also reading, or rereading, several novels by Charles Dickens and made the following remarks in his diary: "My intention was, as I now see, to write a Dickens novel, enriched by the sharper lights which I took from our modern times, and by the pallid ones I would have found in my own interior."[7] “Dickens†redirects here. ...
Adaptations - The novel was adapted for the screen as the film Klassenverhältnisse (Class Relations) by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet in 1984.
- The novel was made into a movie called "Amerika" in 1994 by Czech director Vladimir Michalek.
Jean-Marie Straub was born in France in 1933. ...
Danièle Huillet (1 May 1936 in Paris - 9 October 2006 in Cholet) collaborated with her husband Jean-Marie Straub on films. ...
// Events The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name. ...
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Intervista (English:Interview) is a 1987 film by Italian director Federico Fellini. ...
// November 1 - George Lucas leaves the day-to-day operations of his filmmaking business and starts a sabbatical (while on sabbatical, he wrote the prequel Star Wars trilogy). ...
Notes - ^ Kafka (1946, 300).
- ^ Kafka (1996, xiii).
- ^ Kafka (1996, xiii).
- ^ Kafka (1946, 301).
- ^ Kafka (1946, 301).
- ^ Kafka (1946, 300–301).
- ^ Kafka (1946, ix–x).
References - Kafka, Franz (1946). Amerika, trans. Edwin Muir. New York: New Directions.
- Kafka, Franz (1996). Amerika, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: Schocken Book. ISBN 0-8052-1064-4.
External links - Lost in America a book review by John Zilcosky published in The New Republic, August 18 2003.
- Past Productions: Amerika American Repertory Theatre's stage production by Gideon Lester, after the novel by Franz Kafka. Contains many links of interest at the bottom of the page.
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