Is Capitalism really a system that takes care of all classes within a society? Capitalism is said to be a system which is run by the people and allows many to have economic opportunities. This statement, however, is entirely misleading and conceals the true effects of capitalism. “A Hunger Artist”, by Franz Kafka, illustrates the tremendously subjugating nature of capitalism, as the protagonist slowly and symbolically loses his sense of individuality and passion.
At the start of the story, the artist is shown as being popular with his abnormal act of fasting. Spectators would watch in awe as the hunger artist sits in a cage, secluded from society, fasting for days. After a few years, the number of spectators began to decline, and the Hunger Artist gradually became more depressed. There are a number of symbols in this story all of which depict the corruption of capitalism. The first and most evident symbol is the cage, which is a “small barred cage” containing all his passion. (1) The artist isolated himself from all economic and political aspects of
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society by concealing himself in the cage. The cage highlights the difference between the artist and the people, ultimately, showing how the artist has abandoned society’s rules. For example, the artist follows his passion of fasting, while disregarding the rules of a typical job. As it says, “and then again withdrawing deep into himself, paying no attention to anyone or anything, not even to the all-important striking of the clock that was the only piece of furniture in his cage”. (1) In his cage there is only a clock and he would not look at it. All he does is fast and will not take the time to glance at the clock because he does not need to. The clock indicates the time to go to work in a capitalist society, but the artist has his own schedule. In fact, the artist does whatever he pleases until he loses control of his own life, and capitalism takes its course. The capitalist system ensured that whatever jobs benefit the people will succeed. At first, the hunger artist happened to amuse the crowd, but then the people, who run the capitalist system, determined that his passion is meaningless and his act should end. “But nothing could save him now, people passed him by.” (4) Once the people decide that an act of fasting is pointless, the artist loses control. Capitalism is like a vampire, and “lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” (Karl Marx) Capitalism exploits jobs until they are no longer useful. Since, the people run capitalism, it is clear that they are exploiting the artist for amusement, until he is deemed useless. Similarly, a vampire, continuously exploits those around him, until they no longer show any benefit. Furthermore, once the people determined that the hunger artist is no longer useful, they replaced him with a panther. The story describes the panther as a “joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it.” (5) The panther is the opposite of the artist, but when the people are not satisfied with the panther, it will be replaced just like the artist. Finally, the Hunger Artist is never seen eating with anyone.
Because he has not been in a communion, he was not able to share his feelings, or create relationships. This lack of communions the artist has had led to his lonely death. In addition, the artist’s empty stomach demonstrates the lack of satisfaction that he has. The artist is never satisfied and neither are the people. The hunger artist believes that he wants people to watch him, but when that opportunity arises, he realizes that he despises this. In a capitalist system no one is satisfied, everyone wants more and this is another reason he is later replaced.
This story accurately demonstrates flaws in capitalism by sharing the life of the hunger artist. The many symbols and actions of the artist in “A Hunger Artist” clarify how the story depicts capitalism. Ultimately, illustrating capitalism as a corrupt system that oppresses passion and
individualism.
This story progresses through the artist’s life as he fasted for many days, doing this eventually led to his death. The artist starts in a cage that is on display for everyone to see and does this for forty days at which point the impresario would force him to come out and eat some food. After the artist was done eating, he would relocate to the cage for the reason that he wanted to prove to people that fasting is easy. After a while of doing this the people grew tired and decided not to come and watch him. After the impresario and the artist then went around to other places to see if anyone would watch him and wonder why he did what he did. After a while the artist went to a carnival too fast for people who visited. He requested the carnival to place him next to the animals instead of being the center of attention. He requested the carnival to keep the number of days that he fasted, but after a few weeks the carnival stopped keeping track and so did the artist. At the end of the story the overseer asked why the hunger artist did what he did and the artist answered “because I couldn’t find the food I liked,” (Kafka 334). This shows that he was imprisoned himself due to the fact that he didn’t have the right kind of
Anna Quindlen’s take on child hunger in her essay School’s out for Summer could be seen as very interesting. Most times, people writing about this topic choose to look at the issue in foreign, low-development countries, but Quindlen decided to bring this topic right to America’s back door. By using pathos and logos, this author effectively makes an argument about how child hunger in America could be solved.
Early on, Hemingway describes that he was “always hungry with the walking and the cold and the working” (22). While spending the day with his wife at the horse races, Hemingway wants to “go to a wonderful place and have a truly grand dinner” (47). The two of them head to Michaud’s, a finer restaurant. Though Hemingway debates whether he is truly hungry in the simple sense or in a deeper way, he decides that he is hungry in the simple sense, and they have a “wonderful meal” at Michaud’s (49). There is some sort of practicality of being hungry as Hemingway argues that “in Paris, then, you could live very well on almost nothing and by skipping meals occasionally and never buying any new clothes, you could save and have luxuries” (83), as though, it is more important to have “luxuries” than it is to have money for meals. This necessity for hunger, is characterized better through the methaporhical meaning in A Moveable
In conclusion, “The Hunger Artist” successfully supplements “The Secret Society Of The Starving”. It shows their isolation in many ways. It shows their it in relation to the cage. It shows it through physical appearance, and it tells us why they remain isolated. Anorexia in both texts is important and while it may be underplayed in the fictional novel, it is very serious in reality.
...olence,” and dies (The Martyr 37). The theme for “The Martyr,” is the appearance of death. Rubén turns to food to cope with his depression instead of continuing with his artwork or finding something else less destructive to distract him from Isabel. Because he consumes an unhealthy amount of food to cope with his depression, he ends up dying.
In “A Hunger Artist” Kafka portrays the artist as an obsessed person with starving himself. Not even death matter as long as he gets that attention he wants from society. Kafka wants society to be the reason that artist became they way he is now. “He worked with integrity, but the world cheated [the artist] of his reward” (Kafka 144). The Hunger Artist no longer has anything significant in his life but the only thing that makes him the way he is because he wants the public’s attention. Society demands are high and not easy to achieve, to the point where the artist was the center of attention in big cities with beautiful girls waiting to help him come out of his cage. But now he is in small cage, neglected by everyone, even when it comes to fasting “no one [counts] the days, no one, not even the hunger artist himself, [know] his extent of his achievement” (144). In the end, the hunger artist body could no longer sustain himself after the long-lasting fast, however society was moving on and he was not. Society was the downfall of his life, wanting public attention is not easy with a cruel society that demands change and new entertainment.
Most importantly for those who Marx feels capitalism has an adverse effect on, the proletariat. Marx in The Communist Manifesto explains what capitalism is and what it is to be a capitalist: "To be a capitalist is to have not only a purely personal but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion." (Marx, K., Engels, F. and Berman, M. (2011)). Through such a definition of capitalism, he adamantly stresses that capitalist state is selfish, one that has been manufactured by the desire of individuals to have a greater material wealth than his societal
There are many parallels and differences between Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and "A Hunger Artist". Kafka portrays these differences and similarities very effectively through his utilization of elements such as transformation, dehumanization, and dedication to work. Through his works, Kafka communicates with the reader in such a way that almost provokes and challenges one’s imagination and creativity.
In 1789, thousands of starving peasants abandoned the lands of their ancestors as the price of bread rose to eighty percent of the average peasant’s income (Kreis). Blazing buildings marked the path they took to the source of their woes in Paris. They attacked any food cart they passed. The outline of their skeleton can be seen from under their filthy, thread-bare clothing. Their impoverished condition had reached its climax.
To be alienated for Bartleby and The Hunger Artist is to lose a connection to more than just oneself, as revealed through the characters living conditions and lack of information about the protagonists themselves. Both short stories address the reaction from society towards the main characters in a way that parallels the treatment of individuals living isolated in communities today.
Throughout history, both men and women have struggled trying to achieve unattainable goals in the face of close-minded societies. Authors have often used this theme to develop stories of characters that face obstacles and are sometimes unable to overcome the stigma that is attached to them. This inability to rise above prejudice is many times illustrated with the metaphor of hunger. Not only do people suffer from physical hunger, but they also suffer from spiritual hunger: a need to be full of life. When this spiritual hunger is not satisfied, it can destroy a life, just as physical hunger can kill as well.
...and ridiculed, especially for entertainment purposes. Nonetheless, the Artist shows a hunger for fame, even if the fame and attention comes from a sick and wild point of view. The Hunger Artist dies a man of sorrow and failure, but is reborn as his opposite, a hungry, strong panther eating everything that comes its way. Maybe in some way the Artist represents a lost tradition of fasting which seemed to come and go, as well as maybe representing the desire that our generation today tends to eat too much and require too much. In the end, the Hunger Artist will be remembered as an outcast of society, and after all his years of fasting, his accomplishments are forgotten, easily replaced as if he never existed.
Families and adults who themselves do not go without meals believe hunger is a personal trouble, and not a consequence of society’s structural issues. This is because of the lack of a sociological imagination. According to Mills, a sociological imagination is the “vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society” (71). In laymen’s terms, it is the ability to see how a seemingly personal trouble is often a larger public issue. Imagine a teenager who sits next to a f...
Capitalism dominates the world today. Known as a system to create wealth, capitalism’s main purpose is to increase profits through land, labor and free market. It is a replacement of feudalism and slavery. It promises to provide equality and increases living standards through equal exchanges, technological innovations and mass productions. However, taking a look at the global economy today, one can clearly see the disparity between developed and developing countries, and the persistence of poverty throughout the world despite the existence of abundant wealth. This modern issue was predicted and explained a hundred and fifty years ago in Karl Marx’s Capital.
...of the North and The Road. Today climate change is a growing problem and as a society, we have yet to open our eyes to the damage we our doing to the environment. Both Daughters of the North and The Road show possible outcomes of what can happen if we avoid the truth and proceed to live our lives in such a self destructive manner. Food shortages are prevalent in many parts of the world, but have yet to heavily impact the United States, by lacking an understanding of the malnutrition others go through, we are unable to contemplate what a large issue world hunger is. The Road shows a extremely drastic example of world hunger, one where cannibalism and killing are common tactics to receive food. Though they seem impossible, distopias such as those in Daughters of the North and The Road are very possible, it is just up to humanity to prevent them from becoming reality.