Futility

Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” and Knut Hamsun’s “Hunger” have a lot in common, but even more holistic than that, Kafka’s piece truly embodies what I see to be the existentialist movement’s opinion of the world. Firstly, I am going to discuss the similarities to the novel we are reading, and then I am going to give another opinion of the piece that I feel emulates the movement. The thing that will differentiate the paragraphs is whether one believes that the Artist likes what he is doing.
One could argue that the protagonist in “A Hunger Artist” does what he does solely to placate others. Also, just like in Hunger, the Artist tries to save face when spectators make fun of him. He wants the people to believe that he is truly fasting… but why? “He could keep showing them once again that he had nothing to eat in his cage and that he was fasting as none of them could.” From this, it seems that the protagonist strives off others perceptions of him rather than his own doings. I see a lot of similarities between the protagonists of the two pieces of literature. Both of them are extremely concerned with how the outside world perceives them, even if it hinders them. Like in Knut’s book, the protagonist would rather die of starvation than seem indecent because he was unable to return someone five kroner that he owed. The protagonist in Kafka’s piece of literature is just the same.
However, if one believes that the Artist “was fanatically devoted to fasting more than anything else”; there are more references to be made to the whole existentialism unit. Also, I think it is important to say that I do not really think that the protagonist in Hunger loves writing as much as Kafka’s does; therefore, I will refrain from making any of those connections. But, if you believe that Hunger’s protagonist loves to write, then it would make sense for you to connect the two. The Hunger Artist wants to reach new levels of glory in his fasting career. He knows that he can fast more than forty days, but the impresario hinders him from doing that. The impresario might as well be called society because I believe that is what Kafka is saying. Society impedes us from becoming what we truly can. It stops our potential and in turn uses us for what it feels necessary. Later in the piece the text reads, “The hunger artist responded with an outburst of rage and began to shake the cage like an animal, frightening everyone. But the impresario had a way of punishing moments like this, something he was happy to use.” Once again society is at play and is using his powers to mollify us. Society controls us even though we have the ability to strive farther than it permits. Moreover, when the Artist decides to move to the circus, once again “he did not dare to approach the administration about it.” Although the idea of a Hunger Artist seems weird to us, it becomes clear that the protagonist was not living up to his full potential, only because society did not really have much room for it. He was unnecessary.
The thing that got me thinking the most in this passage occurred on the last page. When questioned why he would not do anything else by the supervisor, he responded “Because I couldn’t find a food which tasted good to me.” I think this means that he could not find another path of life that made him happy. So, he went for what he loved, being a Hunger Artist and what did he get… death. Even worse to that, seemingly a characteristic of existentialism, no one remembers the Hunger Artist as his cage is replaced with a panther. The world sucks.