Symbolism in “A Hunger Artist”

Symbolism in “A Hunger Artist” is clearly evident through out the process of reading this boring story.  The first evidence of symbolism is the hunger artist himself; the artist represented misunderstood artist such as nobody would pay any respect to the starving man.  It is also a possibility that the artist might also represent the Israelites such that he fasted for 40 days in order to achieve divine fulfillment.

The second instance of symbolism is the cage which happens to represent the artist’s alienation of common society.  The cage separated the artist from the common rabble that would at one time enjoy his slow deterioration.  The artist could never really fit in with the people on the outside of the cage even if he wanted to due to his strange desire so starve himself in order to have a glimpse of fame.

Another example of symbolism is the clock which represented how times change such as getting entertainment or not getting entertainment from watching a starving man.  In the artist’s early career he would be adored by many fans for some unknown reason but as time progressed so did the era of new entertainment.

The last example to be mentioned is the panther.  If the hunger artist was to be compared to spiritual enlightenment the panther would represent materiel and earthly objects.  Even though the artist was trying to make a living while in the process of spiritual enlightenment the panther was much more entertaining to the commoners.  The panther distracted and diverted the attention away from the Christlike figure such as the devil trying to distract Christians from enlightenment.

Hunger Artist

The Hunger Artist symbolizes the need for attention in the world.  Everyone tries to get attention in some form or another.  The man starves himself if order to draw crowds in to watch him.  It symbolizes the extremes that people will go in life to get people to notice them.  He is literally starving for attention.

He says that there is no food that he likes in the world.  This cannot possibly be true.  I believe that this symbolizes that there is nothing that he finds more rewarding in life than the attention of others.  He cannot be satisfied if he doesn’t have attention.  He seems to be going crazy over trying so hard to impress people.

He starves himself even after the crowd doesn’t want to see him starve anymore.  Even after he gets attention, the whole crowd cheers for him, and offers him food, it is still not enough for him.  He continues to try to get more out of the crowd by proving that he can fast even longer than they expected.  Then, he ends up not being satisfied with that crowd and decides to go to the circus and fast.

He believes that maybe there will be a better crowd of people that are interested in him at the circus.  He finds disappointment at the circus as well because people aren’t looking to watch someone dying just to get attention.  They want to see something lively and entertaining.  He still doesn’t give up trying to win them over.  He tries so hard that he eventually dies from starvation all because he wanted attention.

What depths would you go to in life to get attention?  How could someone let the pressure of being accepted take over their whole life?

The Hunger Artist in Kafka’s life

The Hunger Artist is a story about a man who starves himself for the attention of others. The man travels from city to city and fasts for a period of time. He believes he can last a longer period of time without eating, but he is forced to quit by his manager. The Hunger artist “feeds” on others attention and spends his time trying to get others to notice him. Kafka uses many symbols in this story and many of the items portrayed in this story have a meaningful purpose.
I think that this story is related to Kafka’s life in many ways. Kafka did not have a good relationship with his parents. I think this relates to the main character in the story because the man feels neglected and just wants to be accepted just like Kafka in regards to his parents. Kafka did not have a good relationship with his father especially and it reflected in his writing. Maybe that is why he wrote about such different topics. Many of the topics that Kafka wrote about had to do with death. This may reflect on how unhappy Kafka was in real life.

Hungry for Opinion

“A Hunger Artist” is a story in which nearly every sentence in the story carries the weight of a symbolic meaning. The main topic of the story is a faster who wishes to be observed by people for his great skill to fast. He starves himself while in a cage to be viewed by people at circus. It seems to be symbolic meaning that he is a prisoner in his own body, being the cage. He wanted to be in the cage for others to admire his great skill yet his hopes did not get met as people were more interested in the animals at the circus.

Later in the story he get replaced in his cage by a lively panther that replaced the lifeless shell of his starving body. This panther is the exact opposition of the hunger artist, the panther is lively and does not care for the recognition of others. However, others seek its attention and it is enjoyed by many. The hunger artist hungered for that sort of attention and recognition.

One of the last main symbolic points in the story is the clock. This clock is representing the draining seconds of the bodily limitations and it makes the hunger artist constantly aware of the fact he will not survive much longer without food and this seems to cause him to realize it once the man at the end of the story tells him to eat. The clock ultimately is mocking the hunger artist in his attempts to fight the need for food. 

“The Hunger Artist” written by Frank Kafka is written about a man who fasts for a living. For a period of time, he was an attraction that others came to view. He loved the attention that fasting gave him. He resists the temptation to eat. He travels around to different cities, and locks himself in a cage to fast and the town will come and see him. After time, the attraction fades but he does not want to change his life style so he joins a sideshow at a circus. It upsets him that the audience does not stop to see him and look at the animals instead. He craves attention and wants others to be astounded by him. After time, no one notices him and he gets so thin that the circus keepers barely even notice him. The Hunger Artist tells the overseer of the circus that all he has wanted is people to admire him and the reason he fasts is because he has never found a food that he has liked. These were his last words and he died. His cage was then inhabited by a young, lively panther that burst with energy.

Kafka includes many symbols throughout the story. The main symbol is the panther that replaces the Hunger Artist at the end of the story. The panther holds new life and draws attention. This symbolizes what people want to see; attention is what the Hunger Artist yearned for, but he was not lively like the panther.  No one wanted to see the man who looked deathly thin and had no energy. This devastated the Hunger Artist because his “food” was the attention and that is what fulfilled him. The cage is also a large symbol in the story. The cage is where he feels comfortable and where he feels he will get more attention. The cage symbolizes how his need for attention traps him. He cannot go and have a normal life because of his starvation for attention which causes him to be trapped within a cage. He is not only trapped in the cage, he is also trapped within himself. His lack of satisfaction makes him strive to starve more and more.  His need for attention has lead to a life consisting of starving himself so others will look at him. At the end of the story the Artist says that he fasted because he could never find the food that he liked. These were his final words before he died. These words symbolize what he was truly fasting for. The Hunger Artist never could feel fulfillment in his life and never was satisfied and that is why he starved. He says that it was the food he did not like, but truly it was something deeper; he lacked happiness and attention in his life and that is why he would fast.

Kafka wrote the story with a deeper meaning than the words hold. The symbols make the reader think deeply into the story and truly ponder the real reason the Hunger Artist continued to fast.

In the short story A Hunger Artist written by Franz Kafka a man known as “the hunger artist” who throughout the story fasts for long periods of time. The hunger artist has symbolism in himself as does the panther that eventually replaces him.

The hunger artist symbolizes artists all around the world and how they strive for attention. He also represents how art may be looked as beautiful and fascinating by some, but totally disgusting and vulgar to others. This is what the Hunger artist represents as a whole. The hunger that the artist has contains a double meaning. Not only is the artist on the brink of starvation, his hunger represents his vocation of fasting as well as his insatiable yearning to defy human imagination by fasting indefinitely.

Another great example of symbolism used in Franz story was the Panther at the end of the story. The Panther’s power and liveliness serve as opposites to the hunger artist who was powerless and ultimately lifeless.  The panther represent everything the hunger artist is not. Even though the panther was caged, it is so comfortable in its own skin that it projects an aurora of freedom. Ultimately the panther obtains the power and grace that comes from engaging with the material world, which was why all of the people flocked to see him. Its vitality has attracted the recognition that the hunger artist failed to win.

Zach Murphy

A Hunger Artist

Expressionism originated at the turn of the twentieth century expressing art in a subjective perspective. Expressionism uses strong feelings to produce emotion in art and attempts to express meaning and emotion rather than the physical world through a naturalistic piont of view.
“A Hunger Artist” is clearly a work of expressionism; it does not describe the world from a natural, realistic piont of view, but instead uses the author, Franz Kafka’s, emotions and symbols to express his own ideas of the world in his own style. In the story, the hunger artist’s fasting, caging, and withdrawal from society represent the symbols Kafka uses to express how he feels toward society. His depiction is not realistic, but uses emotion and strong feelings to explain the meaning, not the physical aspects of his work, labeling it as expressionism

A Not-so-Hungry Artist

In Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist,” a story is told of a man who fasts for the entertainment of others. Near the beginning of the story, large groups of people would visit the hunger artist in amazement as he fasted for more than a month at a time. The hunger artist’s point of view is interesting, because he lives in the “modern-day” (not really our modern-day, but what is considered to be modern to the artist himself), and looks back to a time when people were more interested in him.

The hunger artist could symbolize Kafka’s life as a writer. His works may have been adored by readers from all over for a period of time, and then the interest may have declined, just like the citizens of Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist.”

The idea of hunger in the story, and the fact that the hunger artist does not really feel hunger as a physical thing like we do interests me. I think that what the hunger artist lacks in hunger for food, he makes up for in “hunger” to be the greatest hunger artist ever. He looks back at the days when the public would stand around his cage and talk to him and trade jokes. The days near the end of his career are not as pleasant, and barely anyone even notices him. One man even wonders why such a nice cage would be just sitting arround, as the hunger artist was not even noticed.

I really enjoyed Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist.” It really got my mind working, and I have thought about it a lot. I only wish that I have read another of Kafka’s works, Metamorphasis, so I could have compare the two.

Hungry for Something More

The story “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka is the story of a man who struggles with his need to be noticed and he does this by fasting for the entertainment of others. While reading the short anecdote you are confronted with a man that has a serious eating disorder. “The Artist” as the author refers to him in the story is a man addicted to fasting and starving himself. He sits in a cage laid with straw and denies himself food for weeks. The cage is put on display for spectators to gawk at. The Artist seems to feed off this attention – reaching his bony arms through the bars to let people feel and observe how skinny he is. When his “art” becomes less popular the Artist fasts longer and well into his old age, eventually dying because of his lack of nutrition and age. A panther is then placed in his cage and the audience is captivated, leaving the hunger artist a mere memory.

“A Hunger Artist” is excellent example of expressionism in literature and reflects the inner workings of not only the Artist’s mind, but of the author himself. Often you get the sense that the author not only wanted his readers to understand what was happening to the Hunger artist, but glimpse the truth about why the artist was literally “starving for attention”. Like the artist, Kafka was a troubled man searching for acceptance in society and in life. The hunger artist craved the attention of the spectators because of some long dwelling need to be adored. Kafka never had a close relationship with his father and his mother was not really understanding of his writing. Like the Hunger Artist, Kafka strived to gain the acceptance from his mother and father who never approved of his writing or his dream to be a writer and his life often felt incomplete because of this.

There appears to be a great number of symbols in the story that are reflected in the cage, the artist, the panther, the spectators and food. The cage seems to symbolize the artist’s addiction to fasting and his need to be exploited as a showpiece. It symbolizes his need to be accepted and adored by people and fasting is the way he tries to gain the attention of the people. The artist himself symbolizes the need that is in everyone. Everyone is craving something whether it be love, acceptance, or the ability to be something different. The artist embodies this need and displays it in a way that may seem grotesque and wrong, but everyone’s needs can seem this way if presented in a different way. Through his eyes the art of fasting is something necessary to gain the attention he craves. The panther symbolizes life over death and  change in time and change in what is popular. Before the hunger artist  was a broken shell of a man almost a living corpse, although he was popular and loved. When he died he was quickly replaced and  people became  interested in the panther’s liveliness and they forgot about their love for the Hunger Artist. The spectators symbolize society and how it is always changing and “loving” one thing one day and something new the next. This connects with the panther in how the people used to be interested in the hunger artist but are now interested in the panther. Food symbolizes the need we are all striving for. In the story the artist says, “because I couldn’t find the food I liked.” When he says this he is not meaning literal food he is meaning the attention. It is not possible for one man to not have any food he likes. There is food all over the world and he barely eats as it is. Food symbolizes the ultimate goal of the Hunger Artist – to be accepted and adored.

While “A Hunger Artist” is a story wriggling with dark humor, you can’t help but feel sorrow and remorse for the man who starved himself to death. From a physiological standpoint I couldn’t contain my curiosity in wondering what this man’s childhood was like and upon reading about the author I realized that the Hunger Artist was a reflection of Kafka’s need to be accepted by his family. With its many examples of symbolism and connections to the author, “A hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka is an excellent example of expressionism in literature and is overall a very interesting read. I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

The Symbols of A Hunger Artist

“A Hunger Artist” is a short story that is riddled with various symbolic elements. Some relate to the main character of the story, and some even relate to the author, Franz Kafka.

The only thing this man really knows is how to fast. When his event closed, he could not find another profession. He went to the circus to fast. I think this can me that he hungers for attention. Even as he dies, his last words are “I could not find the food I liked” (Kafka 231).

In the story, Kafka told the audience that there was always a butcher or two in the crowd. The butcher could symbolize Kafka’s own father, who was a butcher by profession. Kafka and his father never got along well and he never supported Kefka’s literary career.

Another form of symbolism is the cage itself. The cage, like his own mind, is closed off from the rest of society.  He dosen’t want to learn any other skills, and when his old job goes, he still wants to fast. It is like an obsession.

To conclude, “A Hunger Artist” is riddled with various symbolism. Both from the authors life and from the life of the main character.