In Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist,” the main character spends his life as a Hunger Artist, moving from town to town performing his “art” of fasting. At first, the public is fascinated with him and his performances; he is celebrated and idolized as he slowly starves himself in a straw-filled cage. Over time, the public loses interest and moves on to newer interests yet the Hunger Artist continues to perform, albeit to an almost non-existent audience, until the day he dies. Through the character of the Hunger Artist, Kafka explores suffering as art, a meaningful life, and the meaning of humanity itself. Uses Irony Suggests that “normal” people can never fully understand Artists and their art. Presents a metaphor that all life is ultimately meaningless. Through the character of the Hunger Artist, Kafka puts forth the idea that we all live life in a cage of our own choosing.
The Hunger Artist spends his life inhumanly, suffering for and as art. For his art, he eschews all the normal trappings of everyday life. He apparently never marries nor has children. He lives in a cage like an animal, with straw for a bed and a simple clock as the only other furnishings. His clothing is a simple pair of black tights, nowhere near enough to protect him from the weather. He has no friends and other than a business relationship with his manager/promoter and swapping jokes with the occasional audience member, no real human contact. He lives his life watched by an audience that in his mind vindicates his art even though at the same time he often resents these watchers. Most importantly, he denies himself that which is most essential for all forms of life: food. Through these lifestyle choices, all for his art, the Hunger Artist puts himself outside of all other forms of life, even animals. He feels that he is above all others through his art, yet in truth all those who see him view him as below all, less than even animals.
Even when he is ceremoniously removed from his cage after 40 days of fasting, the young women employed to help him out avoid touching him, as if he is so below humanity that he not worthy of the simplest of touch.
Ironic that as he lives his life like an animal, he is watched by butchers, men whose livelihood is to cut up animals for eating,
The hunger artist chooses to live life alienated and isolated from humanity at large, yet are we not all alienated and isolated? As we go through the ruts of our day-to-day lives are we not living trapped in cages of our own making?
The question arises as to why he chooses to live like this. At the last moment, we learn it is simply because he never found any food he liked to eat. While at first glance this may seem too easy an explanation, it is indeed a profound statement. The Hunger Artist never found food he liked, he never found any sustenance, any nourishment, any meaning or substance to life. Through the analogy of food, he spent his life searching for something worth living for and never found anything that suited him. So he chose to deny himself everything, as if saying why bother at all.
Ultimately, we all live life as animals, trapped within cages of our own choosing. The Hunger Artist chose a physical cage, a cage meant for animals, yet lived as less than an animal. Others choose the cage of dead-end jobs, meaningless marriages, or trite entertainments that one quickly loses interest in. Regardless of the choices we make in living our lives, we all end life as nothing more than a mere pile of bones. The irony of “A Hunger Artist” is not that he died for his art, but that in achieving his ultimate ideal of artistic perfection, nobody noticed or cared.
Written for Professor Blagg's Introduction to Literature class at Pikes Peak Community College, 3rd March 2005.
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