The Symbolism Of The Hunger Artist By Presence Kafka

The story is a third person narrative following the story of a hunger artist. The author categorically points to “last decades” whereby hunger artist starved themselves and the act was very popular (par. 1). The story follows an individual whose profession is to starve or stay long without food and called herself hunger artist. She fasts for long days (average 40 days) and prides herself with her accomplishments. Her want of popularity and fame continues to be crashed when the hunger profession continues to diminish. Originally, thousands of people watched as she stayed without food and some people were given the task to ensure that she does not eat any food. The people were against cheating and to make the professional credible, the presence …show more content…
Symbolism is used in the explanation of a different and in the current case is the hunger artist and the panther introduced after the death of the partner. The expression and behavior of the hunger artist illustrate that the artist was about to die because of lack of food and the continued aim to please the audiences. However, the partner took a different perspective and Kafka (par. 10) states “he seemed not even to miss his freedom; his noble body, furnished almost to the bursting point with all that it needed, seemed to carry freedom around with it too.” The symbolism is that the hunger artist lost many things because of the pride while the panther enjoys the current condition. The hunger artist lost his noble body and freedom while the panther moves around gracefully and enjoys being caged. Furthermore, the hardships the hunger artist goes through can be related to the consequences of the pride. The hunger artist becomes too prideful to an extent that she better starve rather than to lose her pride. Another aspect is the presence of the clock in the cage. The clock can refer to the changing biological clock of the artist meaning each second she stays in the cage, the older she becomes. Through pride, she is convinced that her professionalism is a lasting human achievement and a noble act but faces challenges through misconception and misperception thinking starvation or pursuing her …show more content…
Using the number of the artist and codifying her name means that Kafka stresses the significance of the pride and its contribution to the downfall. The hunger artist is prideful and the pride forces the hunger artist not stop fasting, translating to death. It means that pride is a direct ticket that contributes to hardships that translate to death. Moreover, the aspect of pride is the misunderstanding of art between the audiences and the hunger artist. There would be a wall between the hunger artist and the audiences, which means that the hunger artist would continue to perform to massage her