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Lecture on Franz Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist' (Short Story Appreciation) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-08-11 20:30:51
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2026-06
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Content

'I always wanted you to admire my starving,' said the hunger artist. 'But you're not to admire it. Because I have to starve, I can't do anything else.'

Today we are appreciating another iconic masterpiece of the short story form: Franz Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist'.

We're talking about starving artists, the power of parable, literary interpretation, outsiders, alienation, the uncanny, mental illness and creativity, renouncing temptation, religious fasting, cages of our own creation, reading our nightmares, and much more.

Timestamps:

0:00 the starvation of Franz Kafka

2:00 final days & Kafka’s last words

3:00 a dark parable for dark times

5:00 why is so much art symbolic?

7:00 how spiritual stories survive

9:00 what is the meaning of this story?

11:00 alienation of the outsider artist

13:00 how to find advice in your dreams

15:00 social media & reality television

17:00 the artist has become his craft

19:00 what is the hunger artist missing?

20:00 thinking about hunger strikes

21:00 how long can we go without food?

22:00 saintly renunciation of temptation

23:00 Christ’s forty days in the wilderness

25:00 fasting for the approval of others

27:00 ‘man does not live by bread alone…’

28:00 appreciating the beginning together

30:00 human cruelty in our entertainment

32:00 feeling a sense of the uncanny

35:00 mortality, art & denials of death

37:00 living in a cage of one’s own creation

40:00 rise and decline of different art forms

42:00 ultimate spectator is always ourselves

44:00 becoming the greatest hunger artist

47:00 wrestling with your previous self

49:00 death in an artist’s masterpiece

50:00 the pain of great achievements

53:00 artist’s fifteen minutes of fame is up

55:00 appreciating the end of the story

58:00 ‘when are you finally going to stop?’

59:00 the perfect symbol for the outsider

1:00:00 the death of the hunger artist

1:02:00 what did you make of this story?

Resources to Explore:

  • Audiobook: There are so many superb narrations for this short story that it can be difficult to choose a favourite. There are also seemingly endless theatre and short film productions and reworkings, which means this story has spoken to something universal in us. For great narrations, my personal favourite is this one by Austrian-American actress and singer Lotte Lenya.

  • Graphic Novel: Comic book artist and illustrator Peter Kuper has produced many graphic novel adaptations of the works of Franz Kafka, including 'A Hunger Artist.' You can check out a collection of nine illustrated Kafka stories in the volume 'Give It Up!' If you check it out, I'd love to know what you make of it because I think Kafka is adapted powerfully in this medium.

  • Remarks on Kafka: We've been speaking about David Foster Wallace's thoughts on Kafka as we make our way through Infinite Jest, but if you've not checked out his 'Remarks on Kafka' you can listen to his talk here. His speech was also printed in Harper's here, and you can check it out as part of this essay collection. If you're reading them together, have you found doing so leads to any insights?

  • The Outsider: If Kafka's presentation of alienated individuals and artist-as-outsider resonates with you, I highly recommend Colin Wilson's seminal work 'The Outsider.' He sees Kafka's hunger artist as the perfect symbol for the outsider, his problem being lack of appetite for life. In addition to Kafka, Wilson also explores the works of Dostoevsky, Hesse, Blake, Camus, Sartre, Hemingway, and many more.

  • Short Stories: If you're loving the sense of the uncanny, strange, and estrangement in Kafka's short stories and would like more, check out my video on twelve of my favourite short story vintages from the world of horror and the gothic here.

Questions for You:

1) What is your personal response to 'A Hunger Artist'? 

2) What message do you take away from this short story?

3) How does the story compare with Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'?

And please do share with us your favourite passages, images, and ideas you've discovered from your reading of this short story.

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

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Comments

Phil

This may have been already mentioned but I found it immensely useful to read multiple translations of the same story, including recent modern translations and ones from Kafkas time. There are many many translations and each one adds more understanding for me. There’s even a Japanese short film with English subtitles of the Country Doctor on YouTube that really added depth and comprehension of that story.

Phil

This idea of the audience representing kafkas father and the universal need to gain his approval and how kafka struggled and failed to get it adds another layer of depth and meaning of this story.

Phil

I was thinking that perhaps this need for validation stems from the need for community. Humans are a social species and those who are marginalized or exiled, excluded must do everything possible to gain entry into the community. Those who already belong have no need for validation. Human isolation is the cause of it all. So how does a society that worships the individual and the self transcend this? Kafka was born into a historically self-perpetuating community that he rejected for his own justifiable reasons or was rejected by it and there was a price to pay. To be excluded from community or to exclude oneself is to suffer and die.

AS

This story reminded me of David Foster Wallace's story, The Depressed Person. I also read The Hunter Gracchus and the Fragment, because I remember hearing Joy Williams talk about it. It was fantastic. I need to think about it.

Donna F.

I found this lecture, about Kafka’s own suffering being the basis for HA extremely moving. I am drawn to Kafka’s writing even as it repels me

Mayelin Garcia

Hi Ben! I find the stories of Kafka really scary and intriguing. I feel uncomfortable but at the same time intrigued about them. I am amazed how descriptive they are and how fast ones can be immerse in his world. A world that seems inexhaustible. Thank you for your lectures, they are very precious for all of us. Now, I will be waiting for the next one, “In the penal colony”.

Clare Shepherd
>>146782706

Those are exactly my feelings when reading many of Kafka's stories, Mayelin, znd also sadness at the illness and pain he suffered at the time of writing this particular story

Angelina

Just finished in the penal colony, I am shocked, but I want to read more. I have started the letters to Milena and it strikes me how much he was suffering due to "consumption", it was really a terrible disease. Most of the time he writes about his suffering, ebraism and anxiety. There is in him almost a precognition of what will come, of what will strike the Jews in Europe that really chills you, while reading. It's palpable. And it sure enough it permeates all his writing. The letters are typically romantic, I say, I don't say, what did you mean. Typical of 1920, of a century that is no more. In particular after 2 months of writing he suddenly slips from the formal You to you. In the last sentence. That was sublime. In Italian we have this difference, as in German and it is quite poetic, the way he makes it happen. So Milena writes back (her letters are lost): do write to me in "you" again, but just a little bit, not all the time. (Kafka quotes) Loved it. I want to go back in time now.

Josh LaMar, He-Him

I’m absolutely enjoying discovering Kafka so much. My reading is circling around Kafka, Camus’ The Stranger, which I’m studying in French with my professor, and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. They are all informing each other in a beautiful way. I am also reading Karolina Watroba’s Metamorphoses, In search of Franz Kafka. It is a beautiful reflection on Kafkas influence.

Andy D

This story really perplexed me. I finished it thinking ‘what the hell was that?’ which I guess is not an unusual response to Kafka. As a struggling artist/musician myself I can relate to the frustrations of getting next to no love for your craft, but the idea of the hunger artist – expecting crowds of people to watch you *not* doing something i.e. just sitting around doing nothing... I was just thinking, mate you had a good run, maybe time to branch out or jazz it up a bit. David Blaine suspended himself in the air along the Thames in a transparent box and I seem to recall even that rubbed peoples’ backs up the wrong way.

Phil
>>146887269

I love the stranger!! It is so kafkaesque! Maman died today…or was it yesterday? Lol

Phil

OMG The Castle is incredible! It is really really funny too. I’ve been immersed in it for the last 5 days and just came up for air for a sec