The overarching themes of art being innately pretentious, existentialism, and the need for validation in one’s beliefs all contribute to Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist,” in their impact on the unnamed focus character only referred to as the hunger artist, who is a professional faster that spends his days locked in a cage in front of a crowd exploiting his refusal to eat as a spectacle. As this character’s identity is never revealed, the hunger artist’s inner turmoil finds its basis in the lack of distinction between the character’s profession and the character as an individual, blurring the two roles. The hunger artist exists as a contradiction: he wants the world to appreciate and respect his art, but he also believes that he is superior and that nobody could ever understand this medium of art as it is a “performance beyond human imagination” (Kafka 641). Throughout the story, the spectator’s interest in his act dwindles until he dies unappreciated and his cage is promptly refilled with a young jaguar. All of these ideas are intertwined in the inner turmoil of the hunger artist causing the threat of displacement in terms of psychological disconnect and physical location which parallels the drive within society throughout all of history.
This character of the hunger artist is both the literal and metaphorical representation of the term of starving artist, which is an artist who sacrifices material things to focus on and maintain the perceived integrity of their work. The art of fasting while in a cage for all to see as the performer literally wastes away with “his body [being] hollowed out; his legs in a spasm of self-preservation clung close to each other at the knees” is one of the most extreme versions within the starving artist category (Kafka 641). The hunger artist believes that he offers this circus not only his art but his “famous and long-known name” but then declines to read over his signing contract to “spare his own feelings” (Kafka 642). The hunger artist is clearly not in this profession for the money or materialistic benefit, but rather he wants the benefits of recognition and validation, but not necessarily understanding, that would give him a sense of individuality he’s been lacking thus far. While the hunger artist is never quite satiated in the reception of his art, he seems to be most content when he is allowed to reach his self-proclaimed potential and fast indefinitely versus his previously imposed limit of forty days. He also seems to be the most satisfied when he is the center of attention as, like most artists, he believes his art, his fasting, is meant to be witnessed, despite him opting for a cage stationed near the animal cages when he moves his performance over to a large circus versus the main attraction headliner showcase he held previously.
One of biggest drives for the hunger artist is his authenticity through the lens of existentialism. With the hunger artist claims to hunger in a way that nobody else possibly could, he alienates his art and accredits only himself in authenticating his achievements. In theory, this would “[bind him] to be the sole completely satisfied spectator of his own fast” (Kafka 640). This mindset puts an emphasis on potential motivational and emotional displacement as it creates a false sense of value to fasting when it is the hunger artist’s body that supports this art but it is also this art that is mutilating his body. Bibhudutt Dash is a writer for the International Journal on Multicultural Literature, which is a biannual publication that focuses on generating discussions surrounding cultural and humanitarian issues that society needs to address. Dash in his journal article “Displacement and Authenticity in Franz Kafka’s Hunger Artist” argues that the hunger artist is motivated and “plagued by threats of displacement” which causes him to “strongly [cling] to his convictions (61). While this perspective has its merits, I believe that the hunger artist encounters this displacement in the form of a pressure rather than as a consequence of his actions.
This back and forth lust for exposure and understanding of the art of fasting yet keeping his integrity and honesty leads to the uncertainty faced by the hunger artist. It leads to the question of, at what point are you selling out? The character of impresario is essentially the manager and the authority over the hunger artist for the first half of the story before the hunger artist leaves his control for the circus. The relationship between the impresario and the hunger artist is mutually beneficial even though the hunger artist isn’t fully satisfied with his situation. The impresario was the force who imposed the forty-day limit on the hunger artist’s fasting solely for monetary reasons versus any actual concern for the hunger artist’s physical or mental health. The impresario believes that after forty days the previously increasing interest garnered by strategic advertising is lost and “sympathetic supporters notably [begin] to fall off” so they then open the cage the hunger artist was living in and have two doctors measure the results of the fast and announce them to an eager audience over a megaphone (Kafka 640). The hunger artist doesn’t crave an audience who understands, but rather an audience who will “exclaim at the confounding limits of perfection which their superficial tastes cannot fathom” (Dash 61). During this celebration of sorts, the impresario draws extreme emphasis to the frail, corpse-like condition of the hunger artist while also making sure that the band is playing loud enough and cheerful enough that the audience doesn’t pay too much attention to the hunger artist’s condition. The hunger artist stays quiet through all of this publicity as it benefits him in terms of exposure. It’s not until the hunger artist lashes out at a spectator who said that his sadness was due to his fasting to which the impresario responds with a poignant explanation that those who are well-fed wouldn’t understand the hunger artist’s reactions and commends his dedication and then proceeds to sell photographs of the hunger artist on the verge of death on his fortieth day of fasting.
The dynamic of the audience is something that creates a conflict that acts as Kafka’s commentary on art. The audience is consistently ignoring the hunger artist while still critiquing his art. This flippancy starts an obsessiveness within the hunger artist and the only change we see in him throughout the story is degradation. Dash claims that this platform “contextualizes the artist’s loss of freedom in a system that progressively dehumanizes him” (62). The increase in desperateness leads to the hunger artist trying to validate his art to even himself. Even being seconds away from death, the hunger artist refuses to admit defeat or show weakness and these are his only spoken lines in the whole story, which draws extra emphasis surrounding his statement that the reason he fasts is that he “couldn’t find the food [he] liked” (Kafka 644). This idea strengthens the belief that food isn’t essential to our survival, but the audience is. Without them, there is no witness to his art. Even though the hunger artist claims that he is the only one who can truly appreciate and understand his artform, without the audience it wouldn’t fully exist. It is similar to the old saying that if a tree falls in a forest but nobody is around to hear it, did it ever really fall?