Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

104
Franz Kafka
hunger artist and the butchers seem absurdly confused: Th e starving
man feeds men who normally provide food. He performs songs and
tells stories to these watchmen to prove that he is not eating. Here the
hunger artist uses aesthetic performances to validate his fast which,
predicated as it is on self-denial, is fraudulent. Despite the hunger
artist’s strong aversion to food, we are told that these watchmen are
unnecessary because of his devotion to the rules of his craft (“the
honor of his profession forbade it” [244]). After just a brief survey of
the fi rst half of the story, suggestive contradictions and juxtapositions
abound: Th e hunger artist takes the greatest pride in his aesthetic
labors while openly admitting that his work is “the easiest thing in the
world” (246). Th e reader discovers that the source of the hunger artist’s
unhappiness is ambiguous: First presented as a consequence of his acts
of self-denial, we learn that the premature ending of his performances
by the impresario (and, by extension, the limited attention span of his
audiences) is the cause of his displeasure (“What was a consequence
of the premature ending of his fast was here presented as the cause of
it!” [250]). Th e hunger artist’s strict adherence to the rules of his fast,
which he will not break “even under forcible compulsion,” is allegedly
motivated by his sense of honor and artistic integrity, despite the fact
that he has no desire for any food whatsoever (244).
During the celebratory culmination of one of his fasts, the impresario
implores “. . . Heaven to look down upon its creature here in
the straw, this suff ering martyr” who, it turns out, is about to suff er a
martyr’s hardship when he is forced to eat (248). Th e ritualistic spectacle
of eating “a carefully chosen invalid repast” presents the greatest
challenge to the hunger artist, who becomes nauseated at the mere
thought of it. It is interesting to note that the strongest emotional
response the hunger artist elicits from his audience directly precedes
this meal: “to the great delight of the spectators,” one of his young
female attendants bursts into tears, unable to keep her face from
touching his emaciated frame (248). So recently fascinated by this
cathartic moment, the audience is kept preoccupied during the artist’s
meal with “cheerful patter designed to distract [their] attention from
the artist’s condition” (248). Th us, the nature of the hunger artist’s
“martyrdom” is complicated by the narrator’s description of this spectacle:
We are told that the hunger artist does not want to get out of
his cage, that he becomes sick at the mere idea of eating, that he is
only a “suff ering martyr” in “quite another sense” than the impresario