Part One Summary:

Interest in professional fasting has declined over the last decades, as has income for the once-independent hunger artist. In years past, the whole town buys tickets and gazes fascinated at the emaciated hunger artist in his bare cage. Permanent watchers, usually butchers, are assigned to ensure the hunger artist does not cheat and sneak food. However, the hunger artist's code of honor forbids him from ever doing this. Still, the watchers often deliberately ignore him to give him a chance to eat. This practice infuriates the hunger artist and makes his fast more unendurable; he sings to prove he is not eating, but the watchers still believe he is somehow cheating.

The hunger artist prefers the watchers who stand close to the bars of his cage. A near insomniac, he enjoys talking with the watchers through the night and proving he has nothing edible in his cage. He is most happy when, in the morning, they are fed a hearty breakfast at his expense. Even then, some people suspiciously believe the breakfast is an attempt to bribe the watchers. The suspicions are not ungrounded; no one can watch the hunger artist all the time, so only the hunger artist himself knows for sure that he is fasting. The hunger artist is never satisfied, though, largely because he knows that fasting is very easy, a contention no one believes. Nevertheless, he has yet to leave his cage of his own free will after fasting.

His impresario (manager) limits the fasting periods to forty days, the maximum term for which the public can remain interested. After forty days, two young ladies escort the hunger artist out of his cage to a celebratory meal. But he always grows angry at this point; he does not want to stop the fast near the height of his powers and fame, and he believes there are no limits to his fasting. If he can endure the fasting, the public should be able to endure it, too. The idea of eating is nauseating to him, and he tries to signify this to his escorts, but they are cruel under their veneer of kindness. The impresario then grabs the hunger artist's waist to demonstrate the effects of fasting, shakes him up a little, and hands him over to the escorts. The hunger artist feebly submits to the ladies, who are repulsed by him; one of them cries and must be replaced by an attendant. The impresario feeds the hunger artist some food and toasts the public with words supposedly from the hunger artist. They leave satisfied, but the hunger artist remains dissatisfied, as always.

Analysis

Before we begin analysis of "A Hunger Artist," it is important to note that the story, much like Franz Kafka's short story "Metamorphosis" and most of his other work, is heavily metaphorical‹we are not meant to take the hunger artist's story literally. However, Kafka's metaphorical fables are famously ambiguous and difficult to interpret. That said, a few things are indisputable about "A Hunger Artist": it concerns itself with art, suffering, and the artist's relation to his audience.

One of Kafka's major topics in his other works and here is the negative effect industrialization and capitalism has on art. Kafka paints a romanticized portrait of the hunger artist as the passionate starving artist who ignores his destitution and the necessity of a regular job. His cage is his cramped apartment from where his artistic inspiration springs, and he never looks at his cage's clock, that ultimate indicator of economics which signals when it is time to go to work. In fact, he never looks at anything else, either; he has total control over his own starvation.

However, we immediately learn that the hunger artist is no longer so independent. He now requires an impresario to manage the show, and the impresario sets a time limit for the fasting periods‹time rears its ugly, capitalist head. More importantly, the hunger artist loses much of his free will when the impresario shakes him: "The artist now submitted completely." Instead of a serious artistic endeavor, the fasting is turned into an entertainment designed to appease the public.

But what exactly is the hunger artist's art? The hunger artist himself, at least, seems to consider his fasting a serious practice of self-denial rooted in masochism and suffering; he is even referred to as a "suffering martyr." He is obsessed with the limits of suffering. The first word (in the English translation) is "during," and the words "unendurable" and "endure" pop up at different times; the words reflect a state of painful continuation. The hunger artist wants a "performance beyond human imagination, since he felt that there were no limits to his capacity for fasting." This infinitude of fasting is ironic in that we usually think of infinity as a superabundance of quantity, whereas fasting is an absence of quantity (since nothing is being eaten; however, the fasting is then measured in how long one has fasted for).

However, the hunger artist complicates our appreciation of his art when he admits that fasting is easy to do. If we take fasting to be a metaphor for suffering, he is saying that suffering is easy. The artist as a suffering figure is nothing new; most art, it could be argued, and especially Kafka's writing, emerges from suffering. The hunger artist is merely revealing his suffering to the world. Let us ignore the fact that he is not converting his suffering to a medium we are accustomed to, such as writing. His medium is his cage and the public performance. But how meaningful is this art, or any art based on private suffering?

Kafka explores the hunger artist's complicated relationship with his audience, and in this relationship we can better see how each side appreciates the art. No one believes the hunger artist when he claims that fasting is easy. They do not understand his art at a basic level, and this incomprehension frustrates the hunger artist. They also trivialize his art‹they believe he is somehow cheating, and they often do not pay him the attention he desperately craves. He enters a vicious cycle of suffering, since he suffers more when the audience does not understand his art of suffering. Metaphorically, he is the misunderstood artist, alienated from everyone even through his art.

However, this alienation and misunderstanding may be precisely why the hunger artist continues his art. He needs to feel superior to the audience; his suffering must be more intense, emotional, and intellectual than theirs. Therefore, he happily watches them gorge on food he has bought while he continues his fast. The artistry of the hunger artist, then, seems meaningful only to him. Only he can possibly understand his own craft, and despite his claims to the contrary, this is just how he wants it. Perhaps he recognizes that his art is fraudulent and cannot bear the thought that it will be understood and criticized. It is much safer to maintain the inaccessibility of his art; no one can judge it except for himself.

So what does the audience take from the exhibition? It is not intellectually interested in the private art of suffering so much as it is fascinated by the public spectacle of suffering‹or the suffering of anyone else (note their delight when the female escort cries). In the same way motorists rubberneck at a roadside crash and moviegoers stare fixedly at gruesome on-screen depictions, the audience here finds the hunger artist's suffering disturbingly compelling. However, just as motorists and moviegoers rarely internalize and dwell upon the suffering of the victims, but move on down the highway or to the next scene, the audience does not suffer with the hunger artist. The watchers think the hunger artist is a cheat, and they often shirk their duty; after glimpsing his suffering, they are happy to move past it.

Since only the hunger artist knows he is fasting, he is the only one who can understand his art; thus, he is never satisfied. Usually we think of insatiability as a condition of excess; the spendthrift, the satyr, and the glutton are all insatiable. The hunger artist's fasting is, as previously commented upon, excessive in its nothingness. He is never satisfied with his own empty stomach, just as he can never be satisfied, or full, from the reception of his art. The audience, on the other hand, never has "any cause to be dissatisfied" with the show. The great irony is that the audience does not understand the art yet is pleased with it, while the artist understands his art but is not pleased. We may say that the hunger artist's exhibition is artistically unfulfilling inside the bars of the cage, while it is entertainingly fulfilling outside of the cage. The key to this divide of fulfillment is that the hunger artist still privately suffers. He does not relate this suffering to the audience, and Kafka suggests this dispersal of pain is the motivation behind the art: "if he could endure fasting longer, why shouldn't the public endure it?" Kafka is even-handed in his treatment of this drive; while sharing one's most private thoughts through art is a noble endeavor, there is also something selfish and hateful about it, as implied by the hunger artist's desire for the audience to "endure" his suffering.

Kafka draws a parallel between the hunger artist and the ultimate figure of suffering, Jesus Christ. The hunger artist's fasts are limited to forty days; Christ was "led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights" (Matthew 4:1-2). Christ's fast, which he most likely did to allude to the forty years of wandering for the Jews, has now become Lent. (The Biblical flood also lasts for forty days and nights, though the incident seems less significant for "A Hunger Artist.") However, Christ suffered for humanity; the hunger artist suffers because of humanity.

While there is no specific reference, the hunger artist may share one other salient characteristic with Christ (originally): he appears to be Jewish. At the very least, the hunger artist is marginalized and cast as the outsider in society as Jews usually are, and Kafka, a Jew, often draws this parallel in his writings. Backing up this contention is that the watchers assigned to his cage are usually butchers. While their profession says something about the gluttony of the audience, Jewish kosher guidelines prohibit pork and dictate specific preparations for meat. Judging by their lax attendance to watching the hunger artist, it is safe to assume these are not kosher butchers.

Part Two Summary:

The hunger artist continues his performances over the years, but he remains troubled, especially since no one takes his trouble seriously. When people tell him his fasting causes his sadness, he shakes his cage wildly. The impresario enjoys quelling this reaction; he lies to the audience, saying that fasting does cause sadness and that the hunger artist can barely endure his forty-day term (even though not being allowed to continue past forty days is what saddens the hunger artist). After this "perversion of the truth," the hunger artist collapses on his straw bed and the audience can again look closely at him.

Suddenly, the audience abandons the hunger artist for other attractions. The impresario launches a European tour, but he cannot stir up any interest. With few professional options, the hunger artist removes himself from the impresario and hires himself out to a circus without even bothering to read the contract. The circus is happy to take on the famous hunger artist, especially since he has not lost his fasting powers over the years. The hunger artist also claims he can astound the world by breaking the record for fasting, though he forgets that the public has lost interest in his act.

The hunger artist makes sure his cage is accessibly stationed on the outside of the ring, near the animals. This way the public must see his cage as they pass by to see the animals, but the passing crowd prevents anyone from staying to watch too long. After the hunger artist observes that most of the watchers are really on their way to see the animals; those who watch him do so more to assert themselves against the animal-watchers and less because they are interested in the hunger artist. He comes to dislike this segment more than he does the zoo-goers. All too rarely does the father of a family remember the hunger artist and explain to his children the story behind the hunger artist.

The hunger artist often thinks things might be better if he were not next to the animals; it makes it too easy for people to choose between him and the animals, the animals smell at night, and he must see and hear them at feeding time. Still, he does not complain to the management, especially since he has the animals to thank for whatever crowds he does pull. Over time, the audience simply passes him by, since it does not understand the art of fasting. The notice board indicating the length of the fast is not updated, so the hunger artist simply continues to fast‹he may be breaking records, but no one, including him, knows. If someone accuses the hunger artist of cheating, he feels it is the "stupidest lie," since it is he who is being cheated of his "reward."

Analysis

The conflict between the hunger artist and the fickle public takes center stage here as he is forced to commercialize his art even more. "Forced" is an appropriate word, since the hunger artist loses whatever free will he has left. Imprisoned in his cage, all the hunger artist has going for him, it seems, is his artistic freedom. Others previously impinged upon this freedom in subtler ways‹the watchers thought the hunger artist was cheating, while the impresario limited his fasting to forty days‹but he still had the pleasure of controlling his self-denial, of scripting his own suffering. Now, the impresario makes outright lies about the hunger artist right in front of him.

It is notable that the impresario uses photographs to "prove" the state of the hunger artist's exhaustion. The audience believes more in the visual medium of photography than in what is in front of its eyes; the static, recorded spectacle is more important than the live one, and they are happy to buy the photographs as well, which are on sale. The analogy to a horror movie is still relevant; humans tend to have an attraction towards horror and suffering, especially if it reveals itself through some kind of recorded media (consider the enduring, obsessive appeal of the Zapruder tape of the Kennedy assassination).

As a measure of the hunger artist's reduced free will, he does not even read his circus contract. Kafka explores the fickleness of the public's consumption of art; it simply deserts the hunger artist one day for other diversions, as if he is a food for which they have inexplicably lost taste. At the circus, the hunger artist is reduced to this level of diversion‹he places himself in a strategic spot as a mere obstacle for zoo-goers, rather than as the main attraction. His proximity to the zoo also demonstrates the corruption of his talent and an ensuing debased equation with the animals.

Predictably, the hunger artist hates seeing and hearing the animals ravenously eat‹or, rather, at "feeding times," a more appropriate phrase for such savage consumption. Unlike before, when he enjoyed watching the butchers eat breakfast in front of him, the idea of others eating now depresses him. Previously, he controlled the consumption (the breakfast was at his expense) and could maintain his superiority of controlled fasting over the animalistic, weak-willed men. Now, the others are actually animals, and hearing them feed is only a reminder of his loss of free will.

To counter this loss of free will, the hunger artist persists in trumpeting the importance of his art. Though he previously conceded that fasting is an easy pursuit, the sentence "Just try to explain to anyone the art of fasting!" seems in his arrogant, alienated voice. Ironically, the greatest targets of the hunger artist's ire are not those who watch the animals, but those who stay to watch him only to defy the stampeding zoo-goers. Though he has reason to dislike them, since they are not really interested in him, his hatred seems like veiled self-loathing; he knows he has become a freak show, and he must project his depression outward.

Nevertheless, the hunger artist feels the world is "cheating him of his reward." The art itself is not enough; he still needs acknowledgment of his brilliance, despite his condescending, loathsome attitude towards the public. This mixture of superiority and inferiority is the crux of his relationship with the audience, and perhaps signifies what his fasting truly is, an arrogant craving for sympathy and appreciation.

Part Three Summary:

After neglecting and forgetting about the hunger artist, the circus workers remember he is inside the cage, and an overseer asks him if he is still fasting. The hunger artist asks everyone to forgive him, and says that though he always wanted people to admire his fasting, they should not. He has to fast, he explains, because he could never find any food he liked. Had he found food he liked, he would have eaten it.

With this explanation, the hunger artist dies. The circus buries him and places a panther in the cage. Everyone likes seeing the lively, free panther, and they crowd round its cage and never want to move away.

Analysis

The hunger artist previously admitted that fasting is easy, although no one believed him. He elaborates here; it is easy for him because he simply does not like any food. This could be sly self-mockery on the part of Kafka, who was a vegetarian. However, his vegetarianism was the product of a deep sanctity for life; he famously remarked to fish in an aquarium "Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore." More intriguingly, some people interpret Kafka's vegetarianism as concealing his inferiority complex about his body. Kafka always felt great insecurity when compared to his strong, masculine father, the single most important figure in his life. His fastidiousness about eating also relates back to stringent Jewish kosher guidelines and perhaps reflects Jewish insecurities about the body.

If we return to the metaphor of starvation as artistic suffering and creation, the hunger artist implies that the world is simply not designed for him, that it naturally produces suffering in him. If he were not so alienated, he admits, he would gladly "eat." This statement undermines the free will of self-denial he previously coveted. Fasting is a mere reflexive action, not a conscious decision to suffer. Fasting is as much a non-art, then, as everyone else's eating is. The hunger artist claims he wanted to be admired for his fasting, but his actions betray his real desire when he speaks "with his lips pursed, as if for a kiss, right into the overseer's ear." Never opening his mouth for food, the hunger artist could also neither give nor receive any love inside his cage. His body could never be used as a conduit for love, but only as a channel for suffering.

The panther is the inversion of the hunger artist. Kafka ensures we recognize it as a symbol of appetite and vitality by drawing attention to the freedom lurking in its "jaws" and the "joy of life" streaming from its "throat." The panther overcomes the imprisonment of its cage and still feels free. The hunger artist, on the other hand, though he thought himself free at times through his self-denial, was always a captive of his own suffering and starvation.

The panther is the next spectacle for the audience, a horrific new entertainment from which the public cannot tear its eyes‹a violent symbol of that which causes, not absorbs, suffering. The last line suggests the panther truly has supplanted the hunger artist as a much more digestible, commercial art form. Perhaps there is some bitter irony in the line, as well; it would not be surprising if the fickle audience deserts the panther at one point, just as it has done to the hunger artist.

• Biography of Franz Kafka
• About A Hunger Artist
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Part One
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two
• Summary and Analysis of Part Three
• Related Links on A Hunger Artist
• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
• Purchase A Hunger Artist and Other Works
• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
• Test Yourself! Quiz 2
• Essays on A Hunger Artist
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