A Hunger Artist is a short story written by Franz Kafka. Released in 1922, it tells of the titular "hunger artist" dying.
A Hunger Artist is the titular short story of the last collected edition of Kafka's short stories that Kafka edited (which also includes the short stories First Sorrow, A Little Woman, and Josephine the Singer) and was one of the last works he ever wrote before his death.
Characters[]
- The hunger artist
Plot summary[]
For years, an unnamed "hunger artist" (who purposefully fasts for long periods of time) has gained large crowds for his art. Though he was limited to forty days (something that the hunger artist didn't like), large crowds of locals came to visit him. Some even offered to "guard" the hunger artist and make sure that he was not cheating (though this was completely out of the question to the hunger artist).
One day, the hunger artist and his overseer find that the crowds are now no longer enthused by the hunger art. To survive (and in the hope of fame), the hunger artist joins into a circus. Instead of making himself into a front-row spectacle, he places himself near the fantastical animals that the circus has.
Despite this, people still ignore the hunger artist (now mostly seeing him as nothing more than something near the animals). Though a few people still visit the artist (largely fathers seeking to show their kids the lost art), he is ignored by the organizers of the circus. One day, they decide to clear out the cage of the hunger artist (thinking that it is completely empty) and they find the dying hunger artist inside. The hunger artist speaks his last words - revealing that he fasted because he could not find any food that he liked - before dying and being replaced in his cage by a panther.
Sources[]
- Wikipedia