A Hunger Artist (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Franz Kafka
- First Published: 1922
- Type of Plot: Parable
- Time of Work: Unspecified
- Setting: Unspecified
- Principal Characters: The hunger artist, The impresario, The spectators, The overseer
- Genres: Short fiction, Parable
- Subjects: Art or artists, Spiritual life or spirituality, Death or dying, Isolation, Starvation
The Story
Franz Kafka's dark parable describes the hunger artist's ritual of self-annihilation and shows the ironic use of dissatisfaction as a stimulus for art. The narrator describes two periods of the artist's life—that of the past, when people took a “lively interest” in spectacles of fasting, and that of recent times, when fasting has lost its popularity. Even in the early days of his career, the hunger artist feels the ingratitude of his audience, which continually questions his honesty. To demonstrate that no trickery is used, the artist sings during his fast. The...
[The entire page is 1586 words long]
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