Symbolism In A Hunger Artist

Suffering Pride

Once Vladimir Nabokov said that he though Franz Kafka was the best German writer of their times. Nowadays the latter is also regarded as one of the greatest writers of his period. Not only his writing style and the turn of phrase convince people of Kafka's greatness, but also the novelty and ingenuity of the themes and problems he discusses in his works. What is more, it is the ambiguity of his pieces that also enraptures both the audience and critics. Among the works that have the above-mentioned characteristics is “A Hunger Artist”, in which the author explores the nature of artists' consciousness and relation of artists' suffering to what they are doing. In this particular short story, Franz Kafka extensively uses the metaphor of fasting to discuss suffering as both positive and negative experience an artist gets through.

Many of the critics that study Franz Kafka's works tended to focus on one specific aspect of the writer's turn of phrase, which is the use of the figurative language. More specifically, they argue that one of the most powerful tools of Kafka's writing is a metaphor. Henry Sussman, a professor at John Hopkins University and a literary critic, who studied Kafka's works, once mentioned in his work that the writer's use of metaphors is complex and even unique. He writes that Kafka had an ability of “connecting the seemingly unconnected, transporting meaning to new meaning, and establishing significance where there had been coexistence of unrelated phenomena” (Beicker). By large, the critics agree that Kafka uses metaphors throughout the whole body of his works. In “A Hunger Artist”, a metaphor appears to be the main stylistic device used by the author of the piece. In particular, he uses the m...

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... forgets about him. After all his suffering, he dies in oblivion and is buried with his only possession, straw. Therefore, physical and psychological self-destruction are also reasons for the hunger artist's suffering because of the art.

Overall, the short story “A Hunger Artist” is of metaphorical character. The central metaphor of the piece under analysis is fasting that stands for suffering of any artist for the sake and because of his art. It appears that the story gives an explanation of how suffering may be both positive and negative experience for the artist. Using the example of the hunger artist, Kafka shows that suffering for the sake of art may be good for it is a source of inspiration and may be a way to self-improvement. On the other hand, the artist may experience suffering because of the art and become its victim just like the hunger artist does.