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.
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.
