The Hunger Artist Essay

“The Hunger Artist”, written by Franz Kafka just before his death, has been interpreted in many ways from different perspectives. It is a story about a man known as “the hunger artist” who practices fasting performance from town to town with his manager. During the peak of his career life, people from all over the surrounding area come to watch his performance. But later, the audience have gradually lost interest in his fasting performance; and now the fasting performance is out of vogue. Yet the hunger artist still insists on it until his death. It is a quite complex story and there is no univocal interpretation to give a full

Julia Patterson Dr. Cofer English World literature September 6, 2014 Why yes, it is another biblical allusion. In the story “A Hunger Artist”, by Franz Kafka, uses biblical allusions to further the meaning of his short story. This is evident through Kafka’s attempt to illustrate suffering by the allusion of his main character, the hunger artist, to the ultimate sufferer, Jesus Christ. “The longest period of fasting was fixed by his impresario at forty days, beyond that term he was not allowed to go” (Kafka 335).

Franz Kafka’s trademark is ridiculing his and the society’s blatant stories in subtle manner. With the help of paradigms what can be seen is that Franz Kafka’s use of humour in oddly places to clarify the asymmetry of the organized world and heightens the tension. It was also used to create even greater gaps both in scene and story line, to further stress the blackness felt in many of his stories. Studying his works it’s evident that Franz Kafka saw humor not only as a defence against the pain and anguish he felt inflicted upon him by the outside world, but also against the pain he rained upon himself. This technique was used to stress on the horrors of the big bad world. Although there have been resemblances of the protagonists’ character traits to his own self, he has brought out not only his own problems but on how people magnify and in

“Hunger”, by Lan Samantha Chang, is a cautionary tale of an immigrant Chinese family in this complex story about unrelenting hunger, oppression, love and loss. Narrated by Min; the deeply unhappy and obedient wife of Tian, a gifted violinist, finds work as a music teacher in New York, but ultimately fails to land a permanent job at the school. Driven by personal failure and his unrelenting hunger for the violin Tian cruelly forces his two daughters, Anna and Ruth to play the violin, so they can follow in his footsteps. Tian’s inability to separate himself from his violin ends up destroying his family. Chang uses Tian’s obsessive hunger for the violin as a symbol of his identity, showing us that we must be careful

Every day, people are forced into positions they do not want to be in. Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction book Into the Wild, and Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Franz Kafka’s fictional novel The Metamorphosis, are perfect examples of people who are unhappy with their current lives. Both men are tired of their mundane existences. On the surface, the men seem to have a lot in common, including their subpar familial situations and their discontentedness with their current existences. Both stories unfortunately also end in misery that eventually leads to death. Despite McCandless’s and Samsa’s similarities, the men are actually very different. It is much easier to relate and gain insight into McCandless’s world than it is into Samsa’s world, largely because of their differences.

One can unknowingly suffer for the sake of society’s convenience. Both authors, Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin, demonstrate the suffering that the protagonist endures in order to serve their society. A variety of rhetorical strategies and modes contribute to the overall role of the protagonists. Ray Bradbury uses personification and the rhetorical mode of pathos to convey the oblivious suffering that the protagonist, the “smart house”, undergoes. Ursula Le Guin utilizes diction and the rhetorical mode of pathos to demonstrate the society’s dependency on the life of a young, hopeless boy. Through the authors’ use of diction, personification, and the rhetorical mode of pathos, readers can view both short stories in a new criticism lense and juxtapose two societies that feature a suffering aspect in each story.

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.

There are many parallels and differences between Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and "A Hunger Artist". Kafka portrays these differences and similarities very effectively through his utilization of elements such as transformation, dehumanization, and dedication to work. Through his works, Kafka communicates with the reader in such a way that almost provokes and challenges one’s imagination and creativity.

A writer’s text is often the window to their soul, the truest reflection of their deepest thoughts. This could not be more valid than in the case of Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka is one of the greatest German writers to ever live. He uses his craft to construct abstract, puzzling stories of various characters and situations that tug at, or rather tear the reader’s heart strings. Kafka’s style of writing is so groundbreaking that it receives its own term, Kafkaesque. This term’s denotation describes the anticlimactic, depressing texts with often no catharsis for the reader. The connotation depicts the frustrating, bureaucratic situations Kafka creates. The way in which Kafka writes these tragedies is profound; every word has an underlying meaning,

Often used to emphasize and express a theme, symbolism is used in nearly every literary work. Symbolism is used to support an idea, make a story ‘rich and memorable” (Kearns, 5), and to connect to a reader’s emotions and imagination. One example of the use of symbolism to support an idea and theme is, The Metamorphosis, written by Franz Kafka in 1912. There is an underlining theme of self-sufficiency and dependence upon others and, therefore, many of the symbols allude to the theme. Three important symbols in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, supporting its theme of reliance on others and self-sufficiency, are backbone, door, and picture frame.

The Hunger Artist was misunderstood by everyone except himself. Everyone saw him as someone in a cage wasting away to nothing, starving himself for fame, but maybe the Hunger Artist’s last words were true, that he was only starving himself simply because he could not find anything he liked to eat. But the Hunger Artist knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. All he ever wanted to do was succeed in fasting, the people loved him at first, but towards the end of his career people seemed to lose interest, and maybe the Hunger Artist was doing this for an adrenaline rush the entire time.

The hunger artist is present as separate from his audience because of his artistry and this is further enhanced by the fact that he has chosen to seclude himself within a cage during his fasting periods. This physical separation between him and society displays the self-imposed alienation he feels is necessary to craft. This physical separation allows him to dive deeper into his crat and his purist for success while at the same time distancing him more from audience and their ability to understand. The hunger artist believes that being separate from society is an essential part to being able to properly display his craft. This willingness to be separated from society makes it increasingly harder for the audience to truly appreciate his craft,

For decades, the hunger for acceptance has been continuously growing. However, there are obstacles in the way creating barriers between individuals. These barriers occur in day-to-day activities and interactions, affecting individuals, and creating negativity. Sebastian Junger once said, “Human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others” (Junger). Everyone wants to feel as if they are apart of something bigger where they can be united, accepted, and loved. Within each of Franz Kafka's short stories, “The Hunger Artist,” “The Metamorphosis,” and “Jackals and Arabs,” and Earl schumakers poem "Hunger Artist - A Kafkaesque Moment" the characters portray the process and struggles of todays human condition, for the need to obtain acceptance by others, through the connections of relationships, conflicts, and symbolism.

In "A Hunger Artist" the artist joins the circus and wants to "astound" the world by setting a fasting record. However, the more the artist fasted the more the crowds ignored him. Critic R.O.C. Winkler suggests that the crowds ignored the artist because of a "corruption" in the relationships between humans.iii[iii] The corruption is seen when a passer-by stopped and looked at the old figure on the sign and spoke of "swindling".  The comment made by the passer-by "cheated" the hunger artist of his recognition, and showed the world's "inborn malice" and "indifference". The hunger artist's eroded cage, comprised of "dirty" and "illegible" placards, the "pointless" sign tracking the days of the fast and "dirty" straw, further signified the "corruption" in the relationship between the hunger artist and the world. During Kafka's lifetime he saw a shift in his audience's attention and felt alienated by modern society.iv

The hunger artist is a story that can be viewed in many aspects in life. Many people want to leave this earth knowing that they accomplish some type of dream, goal, task or some type of legacy. His dream was to be the most phenomenal faster the world has ever seen, even in his death. Besides the dream, the hunger artist wanted nothing more than the people to be proud of what he was doing and the praise from the spectators. There is no excitement to this task, but this dream that the hunger artist had was a phenomenal one indeed. In the Hunger Artist there were symbols that play a significant role in encouraging the reader to fall into deep thought, they are spectators, the cage, and the clock.