A Hunger Artist

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 1 . In the picture inspired by Franz Kafka 's A Hunger Artist ' there is a depiction of the man who is fasting , sitting solemnly in a cage as people look in at him as if he is a sideshow Women , child , and men are all milling about looking in at the hunger artist and reading the signs that are posted around him , all of which sensationalize the hunger artists ' plight . The picture is loyal to the story as it brings a visual image of what it was like for

the hunger artist , who simply sits there , starving himself for the amusement of the public . This picture is a wonderful depiction of the scene as described by Kafka when he writes , While for grown-ups the hunger artist was often merely a joke , something they participated in because it was fashionable , the children looked on amazed , their mouths open , holding each other 's hands for safety , as he sat there on scattered straw - spurning a chair - in a black tights , looking pale , with his ribs sticking out prominently , sometimes nodding politely , answering questions with a forced smile , even sticking his arm out through the bars to let people feel how emaciated he was , but then completely sinking back into himself , so that he paid no attention to anything , not even to what was so important to him , the striking of the clock , which was the single furnishing in the cage , merely looking out in front of him with his eyes almost shut and now and then sipping from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips (Kafka

2 . A parable is a story that conveys its message or moral indirectly through the use of symbolism or analogies and the story A Hunger Artist ' is like a parable in that it conveys its meaning through symbolism and analogies . This story is a parable of the way the public looks at people and what our need for entertainment drives us to do . The hunger artist himself at the end seems to understand that the only reason he had harmed himself by fasting for so long was because he couldn 't be like the other people-food became a symbol of life . The ones who looked in on him had learned how to live life , while he never could The comparison of starving oneself to being an art becomes a part of the parable as well , and the author writes , Try to explain the art of fasting to anyone (Kafka

3 . In the story the author describes the hunger artist as an an unfortunate martyr ' because he is sacrificing so much for his art There doesn 't seem to be anything incredibly important about what he is doing , yet he continues to sacrifice in to do it . He is a martyr to the dying arts , the things that people do not care about anymore , and yet he keeps going forward . In the end he dies for his art , despite...