The Bucket Rider

"The Bucket Rider"
Author	Franz Kafka
Original title	"Der Kübelreiter"
Language	German
Genre(s)	Short story
Published in	Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer
Media type	book (hardcover)
Publication date	1931
Published in English	1933 (1933) London, Martin Secker 1946 (1946) New York, Schocken Books

"The Bucket Rider" ("Der Kübelreiter") is a short story by Franz Kafka, written in 1917. It first appeared in the Prager Presse in 1921 and was published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). The first English translation, by Willa and Edwin Muir, was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It also appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1946).^[1]

The story is about a man looking for coal to fill his bucket. He is a poor man and hopes that the coal-dealer will be generous enough to lend him some coal. He claims that he will pay for the coal later. When he arrives, he pleads for the coal, but it soon becomes apparent that the coal-dealer and his wife are oblivious to his needs. The wife in particular ignores him, and the narrator scorns her. He leaves them in anger, "ascending to the ice mountains ... lost forever."^[2]

The story, the bulk of which is dialogue, has been interpreted as a discourse on the inevitable conflict between people due to the innate differences between them.^[3] Another interpretation is that the conflict between the bucket-rider and the coal-dealer is due to language being both a barrier and a bridge among people.^[4]

References

↑ The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections. Franz Kafka. Schocken Books, 1946.
↑ The Complete Stories and Parables. Franz Kafka, 1983.
↑ Spinoza. Jorge Luis Borges, W. Barnstone, Chicago Review, 1977.
↑ Aaron Summers, Touching the Limits of Knowledge.

Works by Franz Kafka

Novels

Der Process (The Trial)
Das Schloss (The Castle)
Amerika

Short stories

1902–12	"Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" "Description of a Struggle" "Wedding Preparations in the Country" "Das Urteil" ("The Judgement") "The Stoker" "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis") "The Aeroplanes At Brescia"

1914–17	"In the Penal Colony" "The Village Schoolmaster" ("The Giant Mole") "Before the Law" "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" "The Warden of the Tomb" "A Country Doctor" "The Hunter Gracchus" "The Great Wall of China" "A Message from the Emperor" "A Report to an Academy" "A Dream" "Up in the Gallery" "A Fratricide" "The Next Village" "A Visit to a Mine" "Jackals and Arabs" "The Bridge" "The Bucket Rider" "The New Advocate" "An Old Manuscript" "The Knock at the Manor Gate" "Eleven Sons" "My Neighbor" "A Crossbreed" "The Cares of a Family Man"

1917–23	"The Refusal" "A Hunger Artist" "Investigations of a Dog" "A Little Woman" "The Burrow" "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" "A Common Confusion" "The Truth about Sancho Panza" "The Silence of the Sirens" "Prometheus" "The City Coat of Arms" "Poseidon" "Fellowship" "At Night" "The Problem of Our Laws" "The Conscription of Troops" "The Test" "The Vulture" "The Helmsman" "The Top" "A Little Fable" "Home-Coming" "First Sorrow" "The Departure" "Advocates" "The Married Couple" "Give It Up!" "On Parables"

Short story
collections

Betrachtung (Contemplation) (1912)
Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor) (1919)
Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist) (1924)
Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (The Great Wall of China) (1931)
The Complete Stories
The Sons
The Penal Colony
Parables and Paradoxes
Dearest Father
Description of a Struggle

Diaries and
notebooks

Letters

Professional
writings

The Office Writings

Bibliography