repeatedly in bizarre situations. Specifically, within Amerika, a scorned individual often must plead his innocence in front of remote and mysterious figures of authority. 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). In the story, the Statue of Liberty is holding a sword, and some scholars have interpreted this as a "might makes right" philosophy Kafka may have believed the United States holds. Inspiration Kafka was fond of reading travel books and memoirs. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was one of his favorite books, from which he liked reading passages aloud. Although he always had a longing for free space and distant lands, it is said that he never travelled farther than France and Upper Italy. Despite this, a rare photo shows Kafka with an unknown man at Marielyst beach in Denmark. 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." Adaptations Film and television "Amerika", a 1966 episode of the BBC anthology drama series Theatre 625, directed by James Ferman. Amerika oder der Verschollene, a 1969 German TV film aired on ZDF, directed by Zbyněk Brynych. Klassenverhältnisse ("Class Relations"), a 1984 black-and-white German-language film directed by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. Amerika, a 1994 Czech film directed by Vladimír Michálek, starring Martin Dejdar as Karl Rossman. Theatre Amerika, a play by Ip Wischin, which toured the US in 2004 in a production directed by Amerika, a chamber opera by Samuel Bordoli, performed by the Tête à Tête opera company in 2012 Other L'Amérique, ou Le Disparu, a French-language graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Réal Godbout, published by Les Éditions La Pastèque in 2013. In 2014 it appeared in English, as Amerika (translated by Helge Dascher), published by Conundrum Press. Cultural references to the novel Federico Fellini's Intervista revolves around a fictional filming of this novel's adaptation. The New York performance group Nature Theater of Oklahoma named themselves after the one in Kafka's novel. Danish director Lars von Trier's 1991