As the quote above suggests, fasting went out of fashion. His manager would also have to force him to eat. So in the end, his manager would have to drag the artist out of his cage so that he could be feted by cheering crowds. If forty days, then why not forty-one, forty-two? The reason was practical: more than forty days and the audience got bored. What’s more he never wanted to break his fast. Since no single person could monitor his fast uninterruptedly, no one could verify the truth-the hunger artist himself was the only one who knew how honestly he worked. Their continual disbelief was a source of great indignation for him. Except he didn’t no food passed his lips except for an occasional allowed sip of water. They taunted him, ate in front of him (at his expense), and sought to discover how he managed to sneak nourishment under the eyes of all the guards. They would watching him as he sat locked in a cage on a bed of straw, fasting. To begin with, his act was a successful attraction that sold tickets and provided entertainment for the curious sceptics. The story recounts the life of an unnamed hunger artist who’s lived through the heyday of his profession and suffered through its decline. So instead, the premise is entirely absurdist à la Kafka, but the debilitation, the existential angst, and the struggle of the protagonist with the world (and with himself) are all recognisably modern. Sure, bodies existed in the early 20th century, but calorie-counting, bodybuilding, and pilates weren’t the fad. Kafka’s Hunger Artist explores what this performance art means without going into the physical aspect. To put it bluntly: losing weight quickly becomes a performance art. Either way, dieting is usually triggered by peer pressure, and since our bodies are our visible, measurable exteriors, all those peers will have an opinion which will affects us. Taken to an extreme, it’s a debilitating mental illness. In moderation, it’s vaunted as a healthful activity. Franz Kafka, The Hunger Artist (1922) translated by Will and Edwin Muir.įasting has come into fashion. Today it’s called dieting. Fasting would surely come into fashion again at some future date, yet that was no comfort to those living in the present.
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