46 pages • 1 hour read
Hans FalladaLittle Man, What Now?
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1932A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
What role does alienation play in the novel? Consider the characters of Johannes, Lauterbach, and Heilbutt, all of whom are alienated from society in some way. What is the nature of their alienation? How do they deal with it? Do any of them manage to overcome it?
When the story starts, Nazis are already a constant presence in German life. In what ways have the Nazis become part of the social fabric of day-to-day existence? How does the novel account for their popularity among young men like Lauterbach?
Neither Johannes nor Emma is financially responsible. How do their budgetary struggles develop the theme of Economic Collapse and Societal Breakdown?
Compare Emma’s political beliefs with Johannes’s. What do their different levels of political engagement say about their characters? Do their political views change over the course of the novel?
Examine motherhood in the novel. How does Emma wrestle with the idea of what it means to be a mother? Who are her role models?
Johannes invests a great deal of meaning in his white collar as a status symbol. What is the relationship between clothing and social class in the novel?
Choose a secondary character and analyze how they advance one of the novel’s themes.
How is class solidarity portrayed in the novel? Why do Johannes’s efforts to organize his workplace fail? What would it take for such efforts to succeed?
Over the course of the novel, Johannes and Emma live in several different places. How do these homes symbolically chart their growth as partners and parents?
What causes Johannes’s crisis of identity at the end of the novel? Does he resolve this crisis?
