It has often been felt that of the chapters of Kafka's America The Stoker alone stands as an independent short story. But that chapter, although it may boast many fine qualities, is not completely typical of Kafka's writing. Of the chapters of America only the last, The Theatre of Oklahoma, is Kafkaesque. That is to say, the structure is perfect. If we look at what happens in the chapter, this will become clear.

On a street corner Karl sees a placard advertising the Theatre of Oklahoma. He goes to Clayton and joins the theatre, concealing his lack of qualifications in order to do so. He and the other recruits board a train to take them to the theatre. In what context does all this happen? Karl through a series of adventures has ended up working as a servant to Brunelda, a large and demanding woman. At the end of Chapter 7 he is about to run away from her flat and is dissuaded from doing so by the student Mendel, who sits on the next balcony and offers a different point of view to Karl's. On the basis of Mendel's advice Karl makes the decision not to run away, and goes back to bed considering a brighter future. Details in this chapter suggest that The Theatre of Oklahoma takes place approximately six months after the original chapters. Karl has not seen Giacomo, we learn, for six months.

This idea of running away makes sense of the way Karl has behaved up to this point. When he arrives in America he loses his suitcase and becomes embroiled in the fate of the stoker. The suitcase and the stoker are excuses for him not to immerse himself fully in what is going on around him. Then he meets his uncle, who takes him to his home in New York. There Karl takes so much pleasure in the earthly delights available to him that he does nothing to improve his prospects, for example to his uncle's chagrin not partaking of a course of study. His uncle throws him out, on the pretext that Karl did not go back with him, in other words that he ran away from him. Karl finds himself among down-and-outs and meets Delamarche and Robinson, from whom he subsequently spends much time trying to get away. His attempts to get away from them characterise most of the rest of the book, until Mendel persuades him to stay with them at Brunelda's. He does this when Karl's tendency to run away is made manifest, and he appears high up on the balcony, above a parade.

Mendel thus induces a sea-change in Karl's attitude. From running away he begins to make the most of his opportunities and involve himself in what is happening around him. We can see this in the two fragments that follow Chapter 7, but it is particularly evident in The Theatre of Oklahoma, which stands quite separately from everything that has preceded it. Karl for whatever reason appears to have left Brunelda's employ. Either that or he no longer cares to go back.

However we read it, the chapter The Theatre of Oklahoma has much in common with Kafka's other stories that we do not see in the earlier chapters of the novel. You could take it as a separate story. Chapters 1-7 meander and do not seem to know where they are going.

The criticism of America which is commonly voiced, namely that it does not reflect what America is really like, does not apply to the eighth chapter. That is an encapsulation of the country. Karl sees an opportunity and takes advantage of it. This is what is called the American Dream, the idea that any person can better himself or herself. Karl uses the chance to get a job.

This chapter is somewhat more positive than, say, Metamorphosis or The Judgement. Here, if there is a negative side, it lies in what we read into the Theatre of Oklahoma. Otherwise the movement is wholly optimistic. The fate that might lie in wait for Karl could be good and could be bad. According to what Kafka told Brod Karl would find in this almost limitless theatre everything he was looking for. According to a diary entry Kafka spoke of Karl as "the innocent...more pushed aside than struck down". We thus have two possible ways of imagining how the story would have developed beyond its extant ending. This is reflected in the story itself. When Karl arrives at the theatre he sees angels on the pedestals. He discovers later that they are replaced at regular intervals by devils. This implies a moral ambiguity. In addition to which the theatre offers material rather than spiritual happiness.

It does not matter what happens beyond the scope of the story as that is not given to us. The chapter is complete as it stands. The subject is Karl's movement, how he comes into the employ of the theatre, how he takes advantage of an opportunity, regardless of whether it is completely secure. We move from Karl reading the placard at the beginning to his travelling through America at the end and feeling the scenery cool his face. From read experience to lived experience.

The last paragraph in particular, the description of nature, stands out. In the first place each of the various natural forms is described specifically in relation to the viewer. This gives it a peculiar personal quality. Kafka takes the magnificence of America's scenery (which sounds rather like the Rockies) and gives it a Kafkaesque Gothic feel, seeing shadows, and "narrow, jagged, hollow valleys". This is not because Kafka is seeing the dark side of the scenery but because he uses shadow to give the scenery depth, to give it three dimensions, like a relief map. That is in the same way as the angels and devils of the theatre make its provenance ambiguous.

In both ways emphasis is placed on the possibility of the text and of the individual word. This is how Kafka's writing works as literature. It is in the possibility of words, the difference of the shapes that they can take in our minds, rather than their beauty, say.

Set up 26 October 1998

Last updated 28 February 1999

© R. Millar 1998-1999