'A Hunger Artist' by Franz Kafka

Categories: Ein Hungerkunstler Franz Kafka

Essay, Pages 2 (457 words)

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The story known as 'A Hunger Artist', written by Kafka, tries to make sense of how to press huge philosophical inquiries concerning human behaviors to certain things and the importance of existing in today’s world into a moderately reduced story. The author's decision of demonstrating starvation raises the topic of what distincts people from living creatures. At specific times during the demonstration, the artist is glorified as one who has risen above real human needs into a higher, flawless reality, or ideal existence as others would claim.

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The only issue is, it's not certain whether the demonstrator starves himself by his very own decision, or in light of the fact that he has a sensitive stomach and is disgusted by most meals.

However, even though it is true that the hungers artist’s furious self-esteem in his specialty to starve himself motivates him to exalt his fasting, it in fact starts to prevent him for accomplishing his goals overtime since it impairs his relationship, or association with others around him.

He looks prideful at his jutting rib cage, yet his bizarre body pushes away the ladies who tried to carry him out from his cage toward the finish of his fasting demonstration. Because of these circumstances, his deprived body is what guarantees he will never be cherished and gain respect by the general society surrounding him. The pride within the hunger artist dismisses himself from others and sets him in a direction deeper into himself and he strengthens his isolation from everyone by detaining himself in a cage and contemplating steadily.

Instead of pride ensuring the hunger artist popularity, it instead establishes lack of clarity.

In conclusion, while he performs his demonstration, he never comes out successful in indefinite fasting. As this brings him consistent dissatisfaction, he never seems to grasp the idea that the life he concludes he must give up is the variable for the satisfactory he longs to get. An example of this is when he his replaced in the cage by a panther. Despite the fact that it is caught in an enclosure, the animal appears to require nothing because it doesn’t need anything, unlike the artist.

In my opinion, the theme that I interpreted from the story is that he represents anyone who is seen different from others in society based on theirs beliefs, how they may dress, or even the way they choose to live their lives. This individual might feel misjudged and in fact disconnected from the rest of the world or society around them. This is similar to how the artist felt while in the cage, and it leads to how others may go to extreme levels as such to emphasize why they are who they are.