How Long Could You Go Without Eating?

Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” was an – interesting read. Early on, it mentions a clock being the only significant thing in the artist’s cage, causing me to wonder why the clock was so important. It isn’t until later that you realize that the artist can fast for weeks. The longer he can fast, the more impressive he is.

The hunger artist is an odd character; he does not want to eat. In fact, he even mentions that fasting is not the challenge that most people assume; it is easy to him. My first assumption was because he had not eaten for a long time and that the desire had started to fade along with his life. As I continued reading, I found that other spectators of the hunger artist had similar thoughts to my own. The artist denied that as the truth.

The artist, for some reason, felt like nobody appreciated what he did. I personally did not understand why anyone would find it a spectacle worth paying to see. The artist was able to go for forty days without eating and felt like he could go further, but nobody would let him. That is, until his profession was no longer engaging to the audience and he lay forgotten in a cage.

It was not until his dying breath, that we learned the reason the artist had no difficulty fasting and why he never wanted to break his fast. It turns out that the artist is one of the pickiest eaters in the world; he tells the man who came to his aid that he would have eaten if he had found something he enjoyed eating.

It appears that the antagonist is the artists partner. He is the man who refuses to let the artist go without food beyond forty days. He always makes him eat something after that time, preventing the artist from his desire to break his record and prove that he can go longer without.

All in all, I found this story to be different and a little disturbing.