Research Papers / Research Paper: Personal Dissatisfaction of Kafka in "A Hunger Artist" [3]

Well, this is my first research paper. I will appreciate your comments on it.
Is it okay? or what should I do to improve it? Thank you.

Personal Dissatisfaction of Kafka in A Hunger Artist

The author of A Hunger Artist Franz Kafka was the only living son of his family. Therefore his father's expectations from him were great. He somehow needed to prove himself but he was not able to be the successful man as others or his father's expected him to be. This short quote of his life was Kafka's conflict and he in a very metaphorical way reflected this in the short story of A Hunger Artist. In the story, the artist is powerless and is not able to do anything but what he considers art. Audience does not trust him and he wants to prove himself fasting more than usual and insisting thus dying and admitting his feelings when he dies.

Kafka was very thin and it was a problem for him. He tried different diets and sports but yet he was not content of his body as Richie Robertson points out, "In Kafka's case, however, this physical activity does not indicate an untroubled acceptance of his body. It is one side of a deep ambivalence. The other side finds expression in constant complaints in his diary for his weak heart to be able to be able to pump blood through it." (Bodies, 49). It maybe that being thin in a way made Kafka feel week. Although he was aware of it, he did not want to accept it as the way he put the hunger artist. So in the story, the artist is very week both physically as we can understand here, "...his head lolled on his breast as if it had landed there by chance; his body was hollowed out; his legs in a spasm of self-preservation clung close to each other at the knees, yet scraped on the ground as if it were not really solid ground..." and mentally here, "So he lived for many years, with small regular intervals of recuperation, in visible glory, honored by the world, yet in spite of that troubled in spirit, and all the more troubled because no one would take his trouble seriously." and also when Kafka mentions the hunger artist as a "suffering martyr". However the artist does not accept it until he dies thus tries to show audience that he can do more. He wants to break the convention of fasting for 40 days and wants fast more and show people he is extremely happy and comfortable with it. He tries to show people that he can live without eating when no human being can. He thinks this will in a way make him stronger and successful than others. In the story it is often repeated that the artist is very happy and untroubled when he fasts while other people think it is hard and impossible.

The hunger artist of Kafka's last words are, "...because I could not find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like you or anyone else." when he is about to die, he admits that he also wanted to be as others but he could not. He did not know any other way to prove and persuade himself. He admits he could not find anything to eat that he could not do anything else. As Robertson remarks in Kafka, "On his death-bed, he confesses to the overseer that his fasting deserves no admiration: he could not help doing it... So apparently it is not a vocation, but simply a distaste for ordinary living, that made him into an artist." (58)

Kafka was considering himself week may be by the influence of his father or because of his appearance. He wanted to prove himself or he had to and he tried to achieve this by his way because he could not be as others. This was his inner conflict and he created the allegory of A Hunger Artist as Stallman also points out (61). An artist who struggles to show his audience that he is powerful and happy by doing something that nobody can yet audience does not trust him and his art and this makes him more insisting and disappointed, however, at the end of the story when he dies he admits that he did this because he was unable to do anything else. Not because he loved doing it but because he did not love anything else.

Works Cited.

Nervi, Mauro. "Kafka's Life". The Kafka Project. 03 Dec 2006.
Robertson, Ritchie. "Bodies". Kafka: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 46 - 66.
Stallman, R.W. "A Hunger Artist". Franz Kafka Today. Ed. Angel Flores, Homer Swander. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. 61-70.

Writing Feedback / 'Schools are nestles of education' - Essay on Violence in schools. [13]

Schools are nestles of education and education is teaching students the wrong and the right, revealing them the path of an easier, happier and conscious life. These sentences do not describe how schools are but indeed how schools should be. Unfortunately, today there are many crucial and prevalent problems in schools; one of the most terrifying of these is: violence. The inhabitants of schools i.e. students who ought to be ignorant and unconscious about hurting others, prevalently use violence this can be attributed to mass media and family disorders, If ugly things occur in most beautiful places then, something is wrong.

Human beings are another kind of animals unless they have rules, ethics and limits. Whatever the intention is, human health both mentally and physically must be taken into consideration. Media, for instance, tries to get people's attention with anything possible. They ignore norms, realities and most importantly ethics to make money. To illustrate the point, let's imagine a house with a wide beautiful garden in front of it, which contains miscellaneous and colorful flowers. The inhabitants of this house will not even recognize this garden when they go work or come back to home. To make that ordinary garden very attractive to inhabitants, there should be something interesting, extraordinary and strange so that people; not only inhabitants but also everybody will pay attention. For instance, a man who is being beaten by his wife. this is what media does and this is where the danger begins. Humans get used to everything gradually hence many people now enjoy violence on TV; people hitting, killing and hurting each other and others who watch have fun even pay for to see a human is injured. Furthermore, one day these people can hurt or kill other people or even ignore when someone is killed.

Another significant reason is, individual's family life. Disorders in family life may lead students also behave inappropriately in the society. The students who lack of expressing their feelings or in other words who are incurable usually prefer or assume violence as a solution. This stems from wrong or lacking family education. For instance, in case that a father always hits or hurts another member of the family when he is angry, it is very likely for the son or daughter of that father to act in the same way.We start our lives in our mothers' wombs then we continue on their lamps and we acquire our first and the most important experiences, which affect our whole live with our families these experiences also form our personality therefore families should protect their children from violence.

To conclude, two of the main factors of violence in schools are, distorted family life and careless also materialist minded media. This disturbing situation in a place where ought to be the most pleasant place in the world also prevents quality education, which in the future will give students a quality life. Hurting a living being is something that all humans should be ignorant about.

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Writing Feedback / The individuality, use of machines and traveling for pleasure - essay [7]

Hello again everybody! :)

Here is my essay, can you inform me about how to improve it and if you were to point it over 30, what would be my point ?

- In today's world, the following have acquired more importance when compared to the past.
Choose some of them and discuss the changes.

I've chosen; the individuality, use of machines and traveling for pleasure.

So far human life has changed substantially. Industrialization, day by day developing technology, human needs and lifestyle are some of the main factors of adopting a new way of living. Consequently, converting to a new lifestyle brings its own requirements and conventions, which are different from past times. Firstly, individuality has acquired a great importance in today's world. In addition, use of technology at home and work or traveling for pleasure are considerable variations when compared to the past.

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Undergraduate / Using personal pronouns and personal examples and opinions in an essay [5]

Hello everybody! :)

My name is Chidem, and I appreciate this wonderful site of yours.

I am also one of the worrying undergraduate students who is supposed to write an essay for admission.

I am really very scared, your help will going to relieve me.

So, could you please answer:

Is using personal pronouns as "I, me" and using personal examples or talking about personal opinions and thoughts when writing an academic essay inappropriate and wrong?

Or Is it all okay?

Thank you, very much from now :) I will be waiting impatiently ...