1. In The End of Everything, Mirel’s shtetl is portrayed as being bleak and oppressively provincial. What images do you have of Eastern European shtetl life? How do they compare with the way Bergelson depicts Mirel’s shtetl?

2. Is Mirel’s depression purely psychological, or is it also a response to the social expectations of the society in which she lives? Can we interpret her actions as an early form of feminist rebellion?

3. What do you think Mirel does after she disappears at the end of the novel? What kind of life do you imagine her living?

4. Many of the important characters in the novel are newly rich and socially ambitious. Considering how they’re depicted, what kind of statement is Bergelson making about their values and ambitions?

5. Mirel seems to be attracted to people who live unconventional lives: the crippled student Lipkis, the Hebrew poet Herz, the midwife Schatz, and Nosn Heler, who fails at almost everything he tries. What attracts her to these characters?

6. Nokh alemen, the novel’s Yiddish title, can also be translated as “after everything” or “when all is said and done.” This second translation was the title Bernard Martin gave the novel when he translated it into English in 1977. Why do you think Bergelson chose this title? What does it refer to in the novel?