A Literary Analysis of The Hunger Artist by Kafka - Literature review Example

KAFKA Kafka’s story “The Hunger Artist” has had many interpretations over the years, but perhaps the strongest one is that this is an allegorical story about the isolation of the artist in modern society. The hunger artist as a character acts to represent these ideals, by being locked away from society in a cage to starve, in a metaphor that is usually figurative made literal in the story. Some major themes in the story include alienation, loss of personal identity, and guilt. The hunger artist feels guilt because he has changed into a freak show and can no longer work, and therefore he is no longer the family breadwinner in society. He feels especially guilty when the people who don’t understand watch him, because he feels so guilty about letting everyone down (not fasting for long enough). He also feels alienated, obviously, because he has turned into something outside of society, and can no longer communicate with human beings in a way that does not involve extreme amounts of rage and fear. He has lost all of his moorings with humanity, and has become completely alienated. In the process, he has also lost his personal identity; the strangeness of his situation in the cage consumes him at the same time it confuses him. Critics and scholars have been trying to understand Kafka’s works in unique ways since his renown grew after his death, and there are many theories that are associated with his different works in terms of critical scholarship. Overall, though, when one looks at Kafka’s words, the real story emerges: “And, in fact, he had a good reason. Experience had shown that for about forty days one could increasingly whip up a city’s interest by gradually increasing advertising, but that then the public turned away—one could demonstrate a significant decline in popularity. In this respect, there were, of course, small differences among different towns and among different countries” (Kafka, 2010). There also seems to be an ironic tone to the story, but primarily, its message is one of alienation and isolation. In the story, the artist’s troubled relationship with his audience suggests that the hunger artist exists outside of society, and that is why society is wrong. If the hunger artist is an artist, it means to reduce the rest of the world and focus on the self, a finding reflected in the choice of the hunger artist to appear in a cage. This physical separation of the hunger artist and the audience reflects the spiritual separation of the individual self and the artistic impulse in society. This gap leads to critical thinking regarding the hunger artist’s objectives. Different from the others, only the hunger artist has these unique fasting objectives and achievements, and only he knows when he’s not cheating. In addition, the artist’s hunger for perfection is constant, as far as he does not move to understand the audience, but only keeps performing. The artist must always be separated from society because of the characteristics that distinguish him, and keep him striving for elusive perfection. For the hunger artist this perfection can be attained by the act of starving himself. It is a surreal and often bitterly funny tale that has a very sad ending, with the hunger artist being swept out with the straw, after a serious of rather horrible and fascinating miscommunications and misadventures, and replaced with a young panther. The overall assumption of the current report is that Kafka’s story goes deeply into themes of alienation because the hunger artist is essentially separated from the rest of humanity once he becomes a show in a cage; it is also indicative of guilt because the hunger artist can no longer support a family or live in society; and in terms of personal identity, the hunger artist becomes something that is far from human, and discovers that he essentially has lost his former self in his new incarnation as a monstrous freak show in the declining circus tents. In the end, nothing is left, and he is swept out with the trash, and replaced with a panther. Alienation is another major theme in the story. It is an accepted truth that the story uses the tactic of narrating the story through a close focus on the hunger artist, is that it makes the reader feel more empathy and pathos about what the dialogue is saying to them, and the position that the hunger artist finds himself in after he starts fasting is that he is now alienated from the humans, including those who have come to view his act. Written from the perspective of the audience or impresario, it would be an entirely different story, but since it is from the focus on the artist himself, the reader can form a sort of alliance with the hunger artist and see his situation from this personal regard of alienation from his family, his job, and his society. “As a rule it was true that forty days was the maximum length of time. So then on the fortieth day the door of the cage—which was covered with flowers—was opened, an enthusiastic audience filled the amphitheatre, a military band played, two doctors entered the cage, in order to take the necessary measurements of the hunger artist” (Kafka, 2010). In Biblical times, forty days was the standard time for a prophet to be isolated. This Biblical theme is also reflected in Kafka’s work. The alienation of the hunger artist makes it more likely that the reader will want to feel some of the same feelings and experience things through hunger artist’s point of view, because this is the point of view that the reader is supposed to have a relationship with. Flung from being a major contributing member of the society, the hunger artist finds himself alone in a cage fasting for strangers, unable to speak to them or communicate in any other way. He finds out early that as an artist, he has lost his ability to communicate with the rest of the humans; all that he has is his show, from which he comments on them. In the end, the message is less useful than the process of fasting itself has been to him. Though fierce pride is what the starving artist has in his art, and this allows him to improve his level of integrity, he ultimately keeps himself from reaching his goal, considerations made from his public appeal and lack of connection to others. At the end of the fast, he is sub-human to others, and his body rejects the women who seem to offer him some sort of comfort. In this case, starving the body, which is a manifestation of pride, is something that ensures it will never be loved and admired by the public. Pride in the hunger artist shies away from others and centers on himself, and he reinforces his isolation in a cage imprisoning himself, and meditates intensely. Ultimately, you warrant hunger artist pride, not glory and transcendence, but the darkness. The hunger artist relishes his hunger throughout the story, thinking hopefully it will lead to spiritual satisfaction, but ultimately, the fast leaves him empty. “The hunger artist refuses food, but his self-denial reveals his need for a different kind of nourishment: public recognition and artistic perfection. Hunger, for both physical and spiritual nourishment, is the subject of his performance” (Reconceptualizations, 2010). In the end, the hunger artist gets nothing but used by the impresario, even though he has the secret knowledge that he has achieved some internal goals. A significant loss of personal identity is another major theme in the story, and this reflects on the hunger artist as a character as well. There are many ways that a story can be written towards a reader, and many different points of view to be used. But in most of them, what the writer is trying to do is form a bond between the reader and what is being written. In “The Hunger Artist”, Kafka uses the title character as this bond in terms of personal identity, and his perspective therefore becomes the only one that the reader has access to in terms of having an identity that the reader is expected to relate to and have a relationship with. What the hunger artist’s audience and impresario think of him can only be ascertained by the reader through their own personal identity that comes through his character’s voice, and therefore this affects how these characters are portrayed as well as how the reader winds up feeling about them. “The results were announced to the auditorium through a megaphone, and finally two young ladies arrived, happy about the fact that they were the ones who had just been selected by lot, and sought to lead the hunger artist down a couple of steps out of the cage, where on a small table a carefully chosen hospital meal was laid out” (Kafka, 2010). This is not the usual heroic character of Kafka’s age, but rather seems to be a presentiment about a different kind of literary hero as protagonist. The loss of personal identity is a theme that can be explored in this new kind of protagonist. The protagonist, the hunger artist, also acts as a sort of anti hero. Anti-heroes are not possessed of mythological powers or even, in many cases, courage, but instead become heroes through their disillusionment with the societal norms of their time and their conviction that in the face of this distant society, heroism is the result of personal withdrawal and a feeling of stability within the resultant isolation and alienation. Anti-heroes almost unanimously display this sense of frustration with and disillusionment by the superficial levels of society, and in turn provide the world with their own front of taciturn and ironic rebellion against its perceived superficiality, which is something that the hunger artist definitely does. The anti-hero is a man or woman capable of definitive action, possessed of self-reliance, strength, and reserve. But the hunger artist shows that also, the anti-hero also lives his life outside of traditional societal boundaries and must be separated from the romantic notion of the nineteenth-century hero, who was not presented as isolated, alienated, depressed, or confused by his environment and surroundings. “The general population is captivated by this artist who exists under conditions not fit for societys most dangerous criminals. To them, he represents those who have been banished to spaces created for isolation and punishment, and yet they can stop and gawk at him in his cage whenever they please” (Reconceptualizations, 2010) The protagonist or hunger artist can be considered spiritual or artistic, and these are considered the antithesis of the hunger artist’s denied role in society: happy and satisfied, the liveliness of the panther at the end is in striking contrast with the emaciated hunger artist. A division in final interpretation could exist on whether the story is intended to be read ironically. Some consider the story a nice picture of a misunderstood artist who seeks to rise above the purely animal parts of human nature (represented by the panther) and is confronted with public misunderstanding. Others think of it as ironic commentary on artistic pretensions. As a character, the hunger artist comes to symbolize a happy man deprived from not displaying the abundance of society, and the panther, who replaces him, obviously is intended to show a strong contrast between the two. What appears ideal as an interpretation is that Kafka is talking about the world’s indifference to his own artistic scruples, or artistic scruples in general. REFERENCE Kafka, F (2010). The hunger artist. Reconceptualizations of discipline (2010). http://web.mac.com/maesays/Site/AHungerArtist.html Read More