The Hunger Artist and His Audience

The Artist and His Audience In order to begin to understand Franz Kafka's metaphorical and ambiguous short story "A Hunger Artist", most readers will more than likely have to read it more than once. Although the successions of events that make up the story are quite uncomplicated and obvious, the overall meaning of what is going on seems to elude the reader. What does stand out is the complicated relationship that the hunger artist has with his audiences. Kafka's story is about a man who is internationally famous for his act of fasting for up to forty days at a time in public. Even at the height of his career, the hunger artist is dissatisfied and feels unappreciated by his audiences and is frustrated by their inability to completely understand his "art.'' Instead of respecting the hunger artist for his self-control, the public trivializes his form of art. Only the children, who no doubt are accustomed to hearing their parents' relentless commands to "clean" their plate of every nourishing morsel, seem to completely appreciate the anorexic artist, "…it was the children's special treat to see the hunger artist; for their elders he was often just a joke that happened to be in fashion, but the children stood open-mouthed, holding each other's hands for greater security, marveling at him as he sat there pallid in black tights, with his ribs sticking out so prominently…" (Kafka 606). In addition to the casual audience, there were also "relays of permanent watches selected by the public, usually butchers, strangely enough, and it was their task to watch the hunger artist day and night, three of them at a time, in case he should have some secret recourse to nourishment" (Kafka 606). Since the hunger artist considers his fasting a sophisticated art, he feels superior to his onlookers and is most annoyed by the permanent watchers who do not take their duties earnestly. Nothing annoyed the artist more than these gluttonous watchers "who were very lax in