Hunger: a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat. But despite fasting as a profession, the titular character in Franz Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" salivates not for food, but for fame, reputation, and honor. Kafka, most well-known as one of the greatest existential authors of the 20th century, writes in this story of a Hunger Artist that uses his craft as a means of gaining attention and attraction. The Hunger Artist's attempts eventually result in quite the opposite when he continues to fast in order to regain his audience's attention, whom has grown bored of the Artist's performance. In the short story "A Hunger Artist," Franz Kafka, in true existential fashion, uses the Hunger Artist's demise as a means to illustrate the irony in the character's existence; the Artist's life is rendered meaningless when he dies devoid of the fame and recognition that he has starved himself for.
First, the Hunger Artist's existence is presented as ironic as his death is self-imposed, a result of his efforts to give his life meaning. The Artist's fasts lead him to not only hunger but irritability. According to Kafka, "Nothing annoyed the artist more than [his] watchers; they made him miserable. " But Kafka later goes on to juxtapose this sentence, stating that the Artist "was quite happy at the prospect of spending a sleepless night with such watchers. " It is that the Artist dislikes his audience and their actions, but the attention itself that they give him brings him a sense of fulfillment. The recognition that the Artist may receive for fasting is, to him, more important than the impracticality and insufferability of it. After each forty-day bout of fasting, the Hunger Artist longs for the admiration of his audience to continue. Kafka demonstrates this desire of the Artist, writing, "why stop fasting at this particular moment.? Why should he be cheated of the fame he would get for fasting longer.
