A Response to "The Bucket Rider"

This story reminded me of the Baba Yaga, the Russian mythological witch that rides in a flying goblet. I found it interesting how Kafka has such precision in describing the poor man, who, even in his destitution, has time to plot and scheme as to how he will propagandize the coal-dealer into feeling sorry for him. That detail made the story very real for me, when I realized that a starving man is a desperate man, and desperate people try everything they can think of to get what they need; nothing is beyond their conscience. The poor man hopes to inspire pity in the coal-dealer, but at the same time is trading their mutual trust and respect for his pittance; these two things seemed irreconcilable to me upon first reading.

The bucket itself takes on a magical quality, sacred as it is, being the vessel for the poor man's salvation. The bucket carries him as a horse, "at a regular canter," but occasionally makes him "high as the first storey of a house" as if it were a flying carpet. Especially the coal-dealer and Frau Coal-dealer make this story feel as if it were a folk-tale. The poor man vanishes at the end of the story, "into the ice mountains" as if he were banished by their very forgetting.