Karl Rossmann, sixteen years old, incurs his parents' wrath after getting a servant pregnant in Germany. The punishment is swift: Karl is sent off to America. Newly arrived in New York, he is taken in by his uncle Jakob, a wealthy and enigmatic man who claims to be the victim of persecution. Despite Karl's tact and good manners, the situation soon becomes tense and suffocating. As a young German-Jewish immigrant, Karl finds himself confronted with a strange world - one of violent deceptions and chimerical ideals. A modern-day Parsifal.