Hunger Artist Franz Kafka Deprivation and Delusion

¶ … Hunger Artist" Franz Kafka

Deprivation and Delusion in "The Hunger Artist"

"The Hunger Artist" by Franz Kafka, is the story of a man who is defined only by his profession, which is that of a traveling performance artist. His method of performance is to stage public fasts, depriving himself of food in an attempt to entertain the unappreciative public. Kafka explores several themes in the work, including self-deprivation as a means of attaining superiority to others, the artist as iconoclast, and the perils of seeking fame. The story functions as both an allegory and a character study: the hunger artist is a stand-in for all artists and also a tragic hero in his own right.

The hunger artist is a man who, we are shown, has a singular ambition which is to continue to best himself and achieve longer and longer periods of hunger. He says that, if allowed, "he could surpass himself in some unimaginable way, for he felt there were no limits to his capacity for fasting" (Kafka, 2000). He is suppressed by his manager, the impresario, who is representative of intervening commercial profiteering in art. He is, as a present-day manager or agent might be (or, by extension, a movie studio, art gallery, or record company), solely focused on generating public interest and money, disregarding the artist's desires. The hunger artist is not at all concerned with how he is perceived, protesting, "Try to explain the art of fasting to anyone! If someone doesn't feel it, then he cannot be made to understand it" (Kafka, 2000). He is concerned with art for art's sake.

Kafka is both paying tribute to artists and also poking fun at them in the narrative. Though the hunger artist is treated with sympathy in that the audience gets a glimpse at his interior monologue and his despondence in the face of his detractors. He says, "It was impossible to fight against this lack of understanding, against this world of misunderstanding," when his audience doubts his work. In some respects, the hunger artist is portrayed as stubborn and foolish, continuing to perform in his old age and hope that interest in him will be renewed, even allowing him to "legitimately amaze the world for the first time" (Kafka, 2000). The final reveal then works as a payoff of his hubris. He tells the supervisor, as he is dying, that the motivation for hunger is that he "couldn't find a food which tasted good" (Kafka, 2000). In his weakest moment, he is admitting that his art is futile not because it is unappreciated but because the artist was flawed. Kafka is saying that art is in the intention, not the execution.