I am too overwhelmed to write , for i AM the hunger artist !It's like watching yourself , your life , your decisions ,and above all your DEATH !This is how i visioned my death ! I just didn't have any idea that another person knew how exactly it's going to be !Kafka creeps the hell outta me . Seriously !

For most part it could be read in different ways:1. as an allegory on life of jesus. Jesus died trying to tell the people about righteous path. However, just like hunger artist he was never understood and soon ran out of fashion. To me personally, it appears weakest of interpretations.2. About path of abstinence. Hunger artist was personification of abstinence and was replaced by ever hungry beast showing a change in values of society. He chooses abstinence because he could not be at peace with

‘A Hunger Artist’ is about an artist who starves himself as an art. Back in the days, the hunger artist used to be displayed in a cage and a lot of people paid money to admire his art. But, the times have changed and people just don’t care about him anymore. The story is highly metaphorical and different interpretations can be drawn from it. And when once in a while a person strolling past stood there making fun of the old number and talking of a swindle, that was in a sense the stupidest lie

Re-read 3.6.18:Kafka has been, to me, a deeply spiritual writer, speaking deep truths in spiritual and allegorical words, which speak to the heart and spirit. This gorgeous, sad story speaks to me, but I find it hard to convey with my mind. This spoke deepest to me:"I always wanted you to admire my fasting,' said the hunger artist. 'And so we do admire it,' said the overseer accomodatingly. 'But you shouldn't admire it,' said the hunger artist. 'So then we don't admire it,' said the overseer,'bu...

What he did for fame. What he did to prove himself. How some people take things to extremes and then find the thing itself has taken them over. How pointless it is to die for something so petty. How perhaps the clarity of imminent mortality makes the protagonist confess the true reason for his self-starvation. If he did, if it was. Or if it was really about that at all? Was it really about the existential pleasure of living for the day and enjoying what there is? Or perhaps it was about if a tre...

I always try to view a piece of art as abstract and intricate as the soul of its creator. Judging it by its surface would be like judging a person by their appearance, an opinion biased to its very core. Worshiping it according to its fame or its signature is discrimination against Art in its purest sense. I honestly have no idea where my thoughts will lead me. I know though that feelings are submerging me right now and I feel shrouded by the sight of this hunger artist. He was a master in the a...

When . . . some leisurely passer-by stopped . . . and spoke of cheating, that was in its way the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward. The main character is a professional, fasting artist. His manager takes him from town to town across Europe, locks him in a straw filled cage for forty days, and advertises his feat of hunger, drawing large crowds...

When I was born, I started to learn the tricks of the world.I did everything I was asked to do. I did years of schooling.I was asked to take a paying degree of engineering, I did it.I was told that management is "THE" thing for the future and that's where the big bucks are. I did that too. But somewhere down the line I lost track of myself. What will happen if someday everything I did looses its relevance?What will I do? Will I panic. Yes, sure. But what will the future hold for me then? How wil...

He, who had been cheered by thousands, could not now show himself in booths in little travelling fairs, and as far as taking another profession was concerned, the hunger-artist was not only too old, but, still more, he was too fanatically devoted to starvation.Inside his cage of his own free will, the hunger artist may do as he pleases. The hunger-artist whose art has suffered marked decline over last a few years. What sort of art we are bothering ourselves about. The art of starving yourself pa...

When the external critics lost interest and the artist lost his external measure of success, he is left with his internal critic, himself, who unfortunately knew very well how mediocre his performance actually is. Is the pathetic condition of the hunger artist also a reflection of Kafka's own condition?

Ein Hungerkünstler = A Hunger Artist = A Fasting Artist = A Starvation Artist, Franz Kafka "A Hunger Artist" (German: "Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book Kafka prepared for publication, printed by Verlag Die Schmiede after Kafka's death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is an ar...

This is a tiny story and I'd recommend that everyone read it. Think about your hunger. Do you starve yourself for lack of nutrition or do you poison yourself with what you are given? Do you choke your children with your own inadequacy and suffocate those try to live consciously? In the moments when one is faced with something intense, it is easy to get overwhelmed. But take twenty minutes, read this story and answer your questions.

This is a collection of four short stories, at least three of which concern performance art. These four are also included in some version of The Metamorphosis.The First SorrowThis tells of a trapeze artist so dedicated to his art, that he lives for and on his trapeze. Travel is torturous because he has to come down (though for longer journeys, he goes by train and lies in the overhead luggage rack!).Voyeurism often features tangentially in Kafka's works (and sometimes explicitly), but that is no...

It would appear Kafka saved some of his best writing for the time just prior to his death in 1924, and "The Hunger Artist" has a feel of bitter irony and maturity but still retains the same ground as previous works, that being alienation and withdrawal. The exhibit point being a man in a cage fasting for 40 days, and from the first few sentences Kafka induces a consciousness of time by tempting the reader to inquire only of the situation of the hunger artist himself rather than worry about place...

“he was working honestly- - but the world was cheating him of his reward”The hunger artist’s life’s ‘work’ as a public spectator in a cage - starved from food - is one hell of a career choice. What did he feel the world owed him? Perhaps asked another way - “what did he feel he owed himself?”. The older the Hunger Artist became - rather than experiencing inner peace - his heart grew heavy. Fasting itself was easy for him. Forty days at a time were not so much a personal challenge — it was simply...

English: A Hunger ArtistMany of Kafka's texts are bleak, but this one is particularly haunting: The protagonist works for an impresario who markets him as a hunger artist travelling around and eating nothing for up to 40 days - not because it becomes too dangerous after that, but because experience shows that that's the time span audiences are captivated by the act. But as the times change, people get less interested in hunger artists, and the proatgonist goes on sitting in his cage and eating n...

These four stories capture how easily art can drive the artist to death. Kafka is so good at what he does, but these have a slightly different flavour too them. They’re not what you would term as directly Kafkaesque; they have nightmarish qualities and oppressive undertones to them, but the characters are not aware of their sufferings. They don’t feel trapped like K. did in The Trial. They don’t know that they are being consumed by their own pursuit for brilliance within their respective discipl...

Kafka scares me sometimes.Update:25 OctRaising the rating to 5 because I CANNOT stop thinking about this.

You always end up doing shit you never wanted to do.

A Hunger Artist is a Franz Kafka short story that was published in the early 1920's. A Fasting Artist would be a better title because that's what the protagonist is, that's what he does, and he does it publicly, seemingly for the entertainment of the "people". He is very good at it and takes pride in his ability to fast for up to 40 days. But as time goes on the people begin to lose interest in his fasting's until there is no one left, no one who is interested. The story is obviously an allegory...