No Chance Against Society
Throughout this world of unique individuals, the majority of human beings have generally conformed into different societal norms that follow one path and one dream without stopping to think of an alternative path. Complications step in front of individual prosperity and these obstacles spring from the pressures of the popular society. Within the short story, "A Hunger Artist", by Franz Kafka, the author proves and disproves a point best stated by Robin George Collinwood, that; "Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work, does what he wants to do." The protagonist, within this short story, freely chooses his career path as a hunger artist, but as the story continues, the audience begins to see that it is not as much an admired profession as it is a tool to gain fame and satisfaction through the act of suffering. Although Kafka's writing appears easy to understand, it takes a deeper discernment to understand his use of hidden metaphorical themes and symbols. Through his use of parallel connections, dubious metaphors, and symbolic relationships, Kafka is able to successfully portray the triumphant power society has over individual prosperity without complete compliance to popular expectations.
Throughout this short story, Kafka is able to effectively intertwine and detail the relation that the outward society has with the hunger artist. The hunger artist believes his profession to be an art and seeks constant validation, superiority, and attention. In the beginning, the audience is captivated by the hunger artist and his practices, however no one truly believes he is fasting all the time and they do not view fasting as an art. Because the artist is so dependent ...
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...ed by society and eventually defeated. The hunger artist's replacement, the panther, was none other than a soul that was willing to conform to the demands placed upon him. This story takes Ayn Rand's idea of independence and fits it to the practicalities of today's world, which is discerned by the renowned Euripides; "No man is wholly free. He is a slave to wealth, or to fortune, or the laws, or the people restrain him from acting according to his will alone." The hunger artist remained nameless throughout the story signifying inferiority. Kafka's purpose for this was to signify the impracticalities against fighting mainstream society for individual desires. Ultimately, the hunger artist is the true hero for standing up to what he believes in and his death comes right after the moment he gives in. Who is to say the panther will not end up just like the hunger artist?
This story progresses through the artist’s life as he fasted for many days, doing this eventually led to his death. The artist starts in a cage that is on display for everyone to see and does this for forty days at which point the impresario would force him to come out and eat some food. After the artist was done eating, he would relocate to the cage for the reason that he wanted to prove to people that fasting is easy. After a while of doing this the people grew tired and decided not to come and watch him. After the impresario and the artist then went around to other places to see if anyone would watch him and wonder why he did what he did. After a while the artist went to a carnival too fast for people who visited. He requested the carnival to place him next to the animals instead of being the center of attention. He requested the carnival to keep the number of days that he fasted, but after a few weeks the carnival stopped keeping track and so did the artist. At the end of the story the overseer asked why the hunger artist did what he did and the artist answered “because I couldn’t find the food I liked,” (Kafka 334). This shows that he was imprisoned himself due to the fact that he didn’t have the right kind of
In conclusion, “The Hunger Artist” successfully supplements “The Secret Society Of The Starving”. It shows their isolation in many ways. It shows their it in relation to the cage. It shows it through physical appearance, and it tells us why they remain isolated. Anorexia in both texts is important and while it may be underplayed in the fictional novel, it is very serious in reality.
...on as he is of age he becomes hungry for sex. When he is an adult he becomes hungry for work. In the end he is again hungry for friendship and even hungrier for writing. Hunger and racism were the most recurring events in this story and made it a great novel.
Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis, is a novella about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes everything to fulfilling the needs of his family. Kafka’s existentialist perspective on the meaning of life is illustrated through the use of the protagonist of Gregor Samsa. Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility (Existentialism). Gregor is unable to fulfill the existentialist view of finding meaning in one’s life; he acted according to what his family wanted. Kafka’s belief that there is no meaning to life and that the individual has to create his own meaning in life is entirely missed by Gregor. Kafka uses the juxtaposing mindsets of Gregor and his family members to express the importance of an individual fulfilling his own needs.
The story of Gregor Samsa and his metamorphosis is one of sorrow, but more a story to unveil the cruelties of Humankind. Kafka’s brilliance and understanding of human nature can not be fully grasped by quickly reading the story, but instead divulging into the hidden messages Kafka inserts within the text.
There are many parallels and differences between Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and "A Hunger Artist". Kafka portrays these differences and similarities very effectively through his utilization of elements such as transformation, dehumanization, and dedication to work. Through his works, Kafka communicates with the reader in such a way that almost provokes and challenges one’s imagination and creativity.
To be alienated for Bartleby and The Hunger Artist is to lose a connection to more than just oneself, as revealed through the characters living conditions and lack of information about the protagonists themselves. Both short stories address the reaction from society towards the main characters in a way that parallels the treatment of individuals living isolated in communities today.
It is unusual to say the least to open a book and the first line is about the main character waking up as a large insect. Most authors’ use symbolism to relate the theme of their work, not Franz Kafka. He uses a writing method that voids all aspects and elements of the story that defy interpretation. In doing this, he leaves a simple story that stands only for an objective view for his own thoughts and dreams. Kafka focuses the readers’ attention on a single character that symbolizes himself and his life, not Everyman as some authors do. This method is displayed in most of his literary works. To understand how this method is recognized, readers must study the author’s background during the period of writing and basic history to understand this author’s motive. In his short story, “The Metamorphosis”, there are multiple similarities between Kafka’s true life and Gregor Samsa’s.
Sokel, Walter H. “From Marx to Myth: The Structure and Function Of Self-Alienation In Kafka’s Metamorphosis.” Critical Insights: The Metamorphosis (2011): 215-230. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), July 3, 1883, d. June 3, 1924, has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's anxiety-ridden and grotesque alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka as an awesome patriarch. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. This allowed him to secure a livelihood that gave him time for writing, which he regarded as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life. He soon found a position in the semipublic Workers' Accident Insurance institution, where he remained a loyal and successful employee until--beginning in 1917-- tuberculosis forced him to take repeated sick leaves and finally, in 1922, to retire. Kafka spent half his time after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts, his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx.
Frank Kafka is considered one of the most influential writers of all time. Helmut Richter would agree with this statement. Richter agreed that Kafka was a very prominent figure in world literature and was amazed by his mechanics and word usage. I feel that his essay is supportive of Kafka’s writing, but also leaves out many important details in its brevity. Richter did not include Kafka’s flaws and tendencies in his essay.
Kafka was constantly consumed with the idea of relating to the outside environment with a full depth of understanding, in order to break away from the confines and define a place within the environment, one of his own creations. As Kafka's life was controlled by a domineering an aggressive father, a mounting anti-Semitism during WWI, and the experience of tuberculosis, he began to feel the effects of separation from a uniform reality. With these independent experiences as he distanced himself from duty and society.
In “A Hunger Artist” Kafka portrays the artist as an obsessed person with starving himself. Not even death matter as long as he gets that attention he wants from society. Kafka wants society to be the reason that artist became they way he is now. “He worked with integrity, but the world cheated [the artist] of his reward” (Kafka 144). The Hunger Artist no longer has anything significant in his life but the only thing that makes him the way he is because he wants the public’s attention. Society demands are high and not easy to achieve, to the point where the artist was the center of attention in big cities with beautiful girls waiting to help him come out of his cage. But now he is in small cage, neglected by everyone, even when it comes to fasting “no one [counts] the days, no one, not even the hunger artist himself, [know] his extent of his achievement” (144). In the end, the hunger artist body could no longer sustain himself after the long-lasting fast, however society was moving on and he was not. Society was the downfall of his life, wanting public attention is not easy with a cruel society that demands change and new entertainment.
No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that made him so well-known. With all of his influences combined, Franz Kafka developed a writing style so distinct that he founded a semi-genre all his own: kafkaism.
Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a hunger for fame, reputation, and honor. This hunger seems to create in the mind of the Artist, a powerfully controlling dream schema. These dreams drive the Artist to unavoidable failure and alienation, which ultimately uncovers the sad truth about the artist. The truth is that the Artist was never an artist; he was a fraudulent outcast who fought to the last moment for fame, which ultimately became a thing of the past.