The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov and A Hungry Artist by Franz Kafka - Research Paper Example

? 06 October Compare and contrast: The short story “The Lady with the Dog” ed by Anton Chekhov contains many riveting illustrations about an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a woman he meets in Yalta on vacation. The author seeks to motivate the readers to interpret many different meanings from his description of where adultery and unfaithfulness stem from and it is incredible how all meanings hold something captivating to reflect. The journey taken by two strangers together in an unfamiliar city while being married to others penetrates through myriad social codes and leaves lasting impression on both the main characters and the readers. “A Hungry Artist” is another globally acclaimed short story written by Franz Kafka about two decades after Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog and describes what the nature of an individual’s life is in very troublesome circumstances. The artist in the story is victimized by the society in which he lives and Kafka through creating this unique character adeptly explores the themes of isolation and deteriorated human relationships and how they influence a person’s actions. In this essay, I plan to compare and contrast “The Lady with the Dog” and “A Hungry Artist” on the basis of the themes of social isolation, victimization, and corrupted human relationships. Gurov, a Russian banker, is introduced by Chekhov as a very unhappy and unfaithful husband who is deeply dissatisfied by his marital life and frequently cheats on his wife. By having affairs with other women, he corrupts the relationship he has with his wife. Though despising all women in general, Gurov has a strange yet very refreshing encounter with an unfamiliar lady named Anna while vacationing in Yalta. Like every time before, Gurov intends to only have a short lasting affair with the woman and then simply part ways in order to save his reputation and protect himself from social condemnation. However, this time things take a different turn and Anna develops emotional feelings for Gurov. They start an affair spending most of their time in Yalta together and taking long drives. All of this continues while Anna’s husband is also expected to arrive in Yalta which stresses on the inevitable human need to connect with someone under whatever circumstances and how a person could sometimes be left so isolated and starving in a relationship that he/she would seek whatever means to fulfill that hunger. The threat of community rejection and social condemnation is always there for both Gurov and Anna but dissatisfaction in their respective marriages is a huge motivating factor for continuing the affair. Both characters’ reputations and marriages are at risk and social rejection is in itself a huge devastating consequence. Still, they cross all social barriers to indulge in a sense of closeness. Unlike other women in Gurov’s past with whom he has had affairs, Anna excites him with sadness and innocence in her character which he finds very difference and intoxicating even. Chekhov emphasizes Gurov's yearning with acute intelligence by expressing that “she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lornette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy. He thought and dreamed” (Research Matic). Other women that Gurov has ever known have no trace of innocence in them but Anna is the only woman in his life who manages to really excite his desires and attract him towards herself. After arriving back in Moscow, Gurov’s idea that his memories of Anna will soon fade out by immersing himself in daily work routine does not remain successful. This is because his marriage brings him no happiness and only serves to foster the sense of loneliness which secretly gnaws at his heart every moment of his life. Anna’s company in contrast seems to be the perfect antidote for all the emptiness inside him yet it is fraught with the threat of social victimization and Gurov secretly fears that openly pursuing happiness might make him marginalized. In order to seek contentment, Gurov is hardly left with any choice but to corrupt the relationship he has with his wife and rely on lies. One good aspect of the story is that like many literary works which are comparatively hard to go through regarding the high level of language, Chekhov is always economical with his words which help to illuminate the exceptionally insightful content which the story contains. The story picks up issues of loneliness, threat of community rejection, and dishonored relationships, evaluates how each of them influences a person’s actions, and finally reveals their distortions and harms. Kafka in his story “A Hunger Artist” attempts to introduce to the readers a time when public used to be entertained by professional hunger artists who had to fast for many days in a row to make a living. The story illuminates insanely bitter life experiences of such artists with acute intelligence. The protagonist of the story who is a hunger artist is an honest person and performs in a cage. Still, there is a team of three people who stand guard to make sure that he does not eat anything. Such suspicions of the watchers that the hunger artist frequently cheated troubled him prodigiously as much as the 40-day fasting limit imposed on him by the superiors. He never eats anything in between and also wants to fast longer then the fasting limit. This is because the hunger artist is described by Kafka as a professional faster who is driven by the desire to fast endlessly in order to surpass limits which no one has been to surpass before. He wants to achieve something which no human has been able to achieve before by fasting indefinitely and yearning to deny the importance of nourishment. It is interesting how the hunger artist abhors food as much as Gurov despises women. Though sharing the same adamant determination, the difference between the two characters is that while the hunger artist is dead bent on fasting endlessly, Gurov is determined on finding a woman he actually likes who refreshes his spirit. A Hunger Artist is truly a tory of “self-deprivation and punishment as entertainment, with the anorexic as celebrity” (Allardice). Again, the way Kafka’s fictional artist felt hugely dissatisfied in life and misunderstood by others creates a striking similarity between him and the protagonist of other short story, Gurov because as explained earlier, he also remained highly dissatisfied at all times though for different reasons. The hunger artist has deep disdain for his spectators which makes him similar with Gurov who has equal disdain for his marital life. Also, no matter how much the artist seeks to evade the people he performs for, he is stuck with them in the same way Gurov is stuck with the wife for whom he cherishes no soft spot in his heart. In his story Kafka explores intense isolation which people experience sometimes in life. The artists is not understood or appreciated by anyone in reality and people just come to watch him because that is the latest trend in the world of entertainment. With no people by his side to appreciate him for who he is, he is left to sink in the dark depths of loneliness and frustration. Kafka’s expression in the story that “then again, he shrank completely into himself once more, concerned with no one” (Shmoop) explains the artist’s isolation all too well. A very interesting fact worth mentioning here is that the artist’s desires to fast endlessly fall outside the norm and anyone who has fantasies outside the norm can relate with the artist while reading this spectacular piece of work. If this aspect of the artist’s personality is compared with Gurov’s, it becomes clear that his desire to have an adulterous relationship with Anna also falls outside the norm. Not only Anna but all the women with whom he has cheated on his wife are practical witnesses of how Gurov seeks to fulfill his desires which are outside the norm or social code of conduct. That explains why both the hunger artist and Gurov stand to lose so much if they are really exposed to the society and are at risk of social victimization and rejection. Gurov shares corrupted relationships with all the people to whom he has to lie to save his reputation and the hunger artist also has very troubled relationship with his spectators who go on to avoid him relentlessly when his art goes out of fashion. However, apparently Gurov is more aware of the dangers his actions are associated with than the hunger artist as he stands to lose more if exposed because of being a member of a more dignified social class. Concluding, this much becomes clear from the above discussion that both short stories throw light on flawed human relationships but take different routes to explore the same theme. Despite the two protagonists’ class differences, they share the same depth of unhappiness and internal loneliness. The hunger artist is shown in the story as a character whose frustration with life is bursting at the seams as a result of which there are often pronounced outbursts during his performance as well and Gurov is presented as an equally frustrated middle-age man whose depression stems from not being able to find something which could fill all the emptiness in his life forever. Works cited: Allardice, Lisa. “Hanif Kureishi reads ‘A Hunger Artist’ by Franz Kafka.” 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Oct. 2013. Research Matic. “The Country Husband By John Cheever Comparison To Chekov’s The Lady With The Dog.” 2010. Web. 06 Oct. 2013. Shmoop. “A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka.” 2013. Web. 06 Oct. 2013. Read More