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Kafka adopts a subversive attitude towards Goethe, perceived as the model of German classicism. His novelistic undertaking is conceived at each stage as a contesting parody of the German and Goethean literary genre par excellence: the Bildungsroman. To analyze the first novel: The Man Who Disappeared ( Der Verschollene) under this precise angle, allows us, at the same time, to understand Kafka’s deep convictions. In the absence of benevolent figures, of places that can be appropriated and of a path that can be followed, the protagonist, incapable of integrating into the community and of acquiring a mature personality, cannot make a success of his existence.