A Hunger Artist
(Ein Hungerkünstler)
Also
translated as A Fasting Artist, A Hunger Artist is
a short story by Franz Kafka published in Die Neue Rundschau in 1922.
The protagonist is an archetypical creation of Kafka, an individual
marginalised and victimised by society at large. This is a story detailing
the life of a
professional hunger artist (sometimes hunger is translated as fasting,
from
the German). On many levels this story deals with the ideas of willing
nothingness and asceticism as put forward in Nietzsche's texts Beyond
Good
and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals.
The hunger artist at first
wishes
to claim fame by his feats of fasting, despising the limitations
imposed
upon his performance by the need to retain interest as well as the
views
people seem to have of him, where they believe him to be a cheat. In
the
end, through these trials and tribulations he alone is the only
satisfied
spectator of himself during the fast. When interest begins to fade, he
takes
up a position with a circus where he is able to carry on his fast
indefinitely. Only, after time, he finds the crowds there lose interest
just
as much as the circus staff who neglect to update the signs around his
cage
demonstrating the length of his feat of fasting.
When, finally, the
owner of
the circus comes to reclaim the cage, thinking it empty, they find the
hunger artist amongst the hay. At this point he reveals that he had
to fast
as there was no food that he liked. After he states this, he apparently
dies
and is buried along with the hay. The cage is then filled by black
panther
who draws extensive crowds and takes joy in consuming the meats that
are
provided.