Literary Analysis : The Hunger Artist By Franz Kafka

Everyone has people they depend on. People that he or she knows will always be there when they’re needed. But what happens when those people just don’t show up or just all of a sudden stop caring? The feeling of loneliness can break down a person’s character and reduce him to a shell, or in this case and exoskeleton, of who he once was. We can see this in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. When Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a giant beetle-like creature, what he needs more than anything is the love and support of his family, but he disgusts them. They shut him up in his room so that no one can see him. They are ashamed of him, and quickly forget that he was part of their own flesh and blood. All that they can see is the monster that appears on the on the outside. Gregor’s sister and parents betray his love for them and leave him feeling lonely in the most terrifying and desperate time of his life.

In this short story, the author uses repetition, and unconventional detail to illustrate the different ways hunger can be manifested and differentiate them. In order to emphasize the various kinds of hunger he felt, the author uses repetition. In the story, he uses the device often as the term hunger is frequent in the entire passage. Hemingway also uses the word for emphasis on the significance and the meaning, which leaves the reader to apply syntax to comprehend the correct meaning (De, Baerdemaeker 65). A phrase such as, he was starving in a simple way, means that he feels hungry because he hasn’t eaten any food. Hemingway talks about hunger as being simple because its connotation is denotative of the word. In the book the work, the other kinds of hunger are at times intricate to decipher. In the instance that Hemingway questions Hadley about whether he is hungry, Hadley replies that there are various kinds of hunger. He says that spring has a diversified hunger, but that was in the past as memory is no hunger. There is repetition of the term hunger as evident in unconventional settings when Hemingway tells Hadley to define hunger.

In the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, there are significant actions and transformations which make the story sad, and strange with a happy ending. Explanations that are dramatic events that intensify the excitement of all these actions. Reality and reflection play an important role in this story because the events that happened could be applied and assimilated with modern society.

The definition of artist according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is "Any person who performs his work as if it were an art." This is a perfect example of the hunger artist as he approaches his work with passion and devotion. He takes pride in his work and is disappointed by the limitations put

In his short story “The Hunger Artist,” Franz Kafka illustrates this prideful individual, who strives to starve himself to a disturbing and gruesome extent, losing his humanity. Kafka uses symbolism in order to fully create this idea of an individual’s, in this case the starving artist, estrangement from society.

In his novel The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes his own life through the life of his protagonist Gregor Samsa.  Careful study of Franz Kafka's life shows that Kafka's family, workplace, and reaction to the adversity in his family and workplace are just like those of Gregor.  So we might ask why Gregor was transformed into a bug since Kafka obviously never turned into a bug.  The absurd image illustrates how Gregor lacks self-respect and feels like he's a bug in the eyes of his family and society.  Franz Kafka was unhappy and never found his place in life, either.  Therefore, he might have felt just like Gregor, like a bug.  Furthermore the novel describes Kafka's expectations of his own future and he was partially

To start, Lorna Dee Cervantes talks about her family and heritage using a freeway as the main idea. She talks about how a freeway now covers a spot where little houses used to exist “near the gray cannery”(Cervantes, 1). Here under this freeway, the author remembers her childhood that now has been covered, but she remembers that when she used to live in this area, she wanted to leave. She wanted to find a place that was different from where she lived, but a part of her wants to relive her childhood. The author states,” Maybe it’s here en los camps extraños de esta ciudad where I’ll find it, that part of me mown under like a corpse or a loose seed”(Cervantes, 20-25). The author wants to remember all the good times she had during her childhood home. She remembers how important her family was to her. On the other hand,”Hunger in New York City,” uses hunger as a way to show the importance of family and heritage. Simon Ortiz talks that hunger can come from anywhere or from anything. In this case, he uses hunger in place of his parents. After moving to New York City, the author

Another evident similarity between the two works is the treatment of the characters. Both Gregor and the hunger artist are treated inhumanely. This is clear in “The Metamorphosis” when Greta begins to think of Gregor as an “it” (Metamorphosis 51). Although Gregor has transformed physically, he is still human inside. Everyone around him fails to see that though, and only regard him by what they see, which is a bug. Likewise, the hunger artist is not treated as a human being either. The hunger artist is infatuated with being the best faster in Europe. This obsession deprives him from forming any social or long-lasting relationships. His alienation eventually accounts for his demise, along with the fact that he is constantly misunderstood. The people who come to see him, as well as the people who guard him, do not understand that he is not fasting for amusement. Fasting beyond the forty-day limit is important to the hunger artist, but no one can comprehend why, which creates a barrier between the hunger artist and the outside world. Because of this barrier, people treat him as if he is just another animal in a cage. When he joins

Kafka also uses the existential idea that man's fate is sometimes beyond man's control. In his stories, chance or destiny rules man's life. Gregor could not control his metamorphosis, just as he cannot control his "new" legs which "waved helplessly before his eyes" (1). The hunger artist's fate is to die of starvation, since as he says, "I have to fast, I can't help it" (8). Gregor dies; the artist dies. Their lack of control over their fates emphasizes man's helplessness and "forlornness," to use Sartre's term.

Kafka was critical in bringing the new outlook on modern culture and particularly on modern man. Franz Kafka studied the modern man in the face of contemporary culture, and how he was steadfast in retaining his spirituality and identity, and gravitate towards authenticity and happiness. However, Kafka saw how the dehumanizing forces of industrialization and capitalism in the post- the WWI Europe posed a challenge to the modern man. Modern culture can be viewed tolerating and open to all. To Franz Kafka, modern culture coupled with technology is fast changing, and man has to maintain his self-consciousness in order not lose his spirituality and identity amidst these changes (Wintle pp. 708-710). Hence, as modern culture changes with the changing technology, religions are poised to change too, which presents fears to a man about losing his spirituality and identity upon embracing the modern culture. Interestingly, Kafka was mystical in his writings, with a keen interest in themes such as metamorphosis, existential and identity. If we look at “The Metamorphosis,” we can view the idea of how the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and industrialism are indicated within the writings. Kafka contends we become dehumanized with buying power and working too much. The transformation of Gregor seems to indicate a denial of responsibility to the changing forms of society’s conventions and values.

In Franz Kafka’s short story, “A Hunger Artist”, Kafka introduces an eccentric man known as the Hunger Artist. The Hunger Artist has committed his entire life to the art of fasting, allowing himself to be caged and displayed to the public as if he were a painting (Kafka 198). Despite all the emotional turmoil he endures, he takes a great amount of pride in fasting and believes that he can fast for extremely elongated periods (Kafka 200). Unfortunately, his pride not only causes internal conflicts but also tragically leads to his unfortunate demise (Kafka 205). Through the setting and the character development of the Hunger Artist, Kafka illuminates the dangers of self-pride and depicts pride as harmful and detrimental to one’s existence.

Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a

In the opening lines of German author Franz Kafkas’ short story narrative “The Metamorphosis”, the protagonist Gregor Samsa a disgruntled traveling salesman who lives with and supports his parents and little sister, awakens from a night of unpleasant dreams to find that he has been metamorphosed into a cockroach he calls a “monstrous vermin” (Kafka, page 89). This particularly strange opening sets the stage for in my opinion, a very strange and very vague play. I say this because throughout the whole story we never find out much less are given any clue of how or why he managed to be metamorphosed into this insect. Not to mention what the moral of the story is or the fact that this whole book reads like one big

In the “Hunger Artist,” the main character, the hunger artist, alienates himself from society due to his desire to starve himself. He has

No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that