Notes for something Kafkaish, cont'd: By Act III, the protagonist has realized that his family is almost entirely composed of completely psychotic folks, due to their connection with a shadowy intelligence-gathering service of the local Margrave, and his three systematic attempts at the professions in the village have each ended in the context of very peculiar events and very corrupt people, effectively exiling him from the municipality.
Perhaps the genesis of Hoffmann's S. Serapion. Like bread, the social mind doesn't come to life until broken, and it will not break as long as the possibility of normal relation to the world persists.
Unrelatedly: Although this isn't in any of the variora, I'm convinced that Hamlet's "north by northwest" indicates the upstage, i.e., the platform where the royal couple would stand, and south stands for the groundlings in front of him. A sort of universal convention of the stage, for some reason, and perhaps also described that way 400 years ago. And always look for the groundlings-good-cheer lines. There's more of them in there than one might think. As difficult as life might be in the plot, one can always turn to the invisible audience for a bit of good cheer.
Also: hawk/handsaw -- also not in the variora, but these are very similar sounds. (Which might perhaps have embarrassed a nobleman visiting a theatre/worksite when he searched the sky.)