Kafka's Bucket Rider

So I finally came up with what I feel is a reasonable analysis of Kafka's bucket rider. In class the question of wheter or not the man on the bucket was alive was brought up. At first this perplexed me too as it appeared that Kafka might be attempthing a sort of Sixth sense sort of idea. And then I figured it out. It is not important whether or not the character is alive. The character is merely a metaphor for the human condition. He is characterized by his empty bucket. Thus he is defined by the fact that he is in a perpetual state of need, a need which either can not or will not be sated. Being that he is a metaphor he was never really alive. I believe Kafka is commenting on the tragic nature of the human condition, specifically that to be alive is to exist in a perpetual state of want and need. Whether those needs be biological, as in the need to eat, sleep, drink ect. Or the the need for comforts and luxeries. By living as creatures who are in a sense destined to live a life of need, we are designed to almost never be satisfied. We are by our design never able to full fill our needs and thus never be happy. Even the man who has the coal is suffering from his excesses. Kafka is also commenting on the fact that in an effort to satisfy our own needs we often overlook the needs of others, as he does with the description of the coal owner and his wife