Leave me alone! It's a phrase often times used by teenagers around the world. During teenage years, many people fight to be left alone. They find comfort in being without the company of others. Many of them grow out of it and learn to deal with social interaction in a positive way. But some of them, don't. Instead they alienate themselves from society further. “The Hunger Artist”, by Franz Kafka, and “The Secret Society Of The Starving”, by Mim Udovitch feature the few people that prefer to stay in isolation. They illustrate the true extent that many are willing to go to be alone. They supplement each other. “ The Hunger Artist” helps us to see how far Anas, otherwise known as anorexics, are willing to go to stay isolated from a community …show more content…
The author also notes how she identifies herself. “She is, in her terms, ''an ana''” ( Udovitch 19). She labels herself much like how the US labeled immigrants and freed slaves in the past using Jim Crow laws. They, slaves and immigrants, were equal but, separate. They had their own form of society between their own groups and didn't associate with others unlike them. They isolated themselves. Claire is doing this by proclaiming that she is an Ana. She is saying that she not a part of the masses. She is different. The hunger artist does this same thing. He confines himself not only in a physical cage but also a mental one too. Both the Anas and the hunger artist are regular people who make a special effort to be isolated from society .He uses the cage as a wall between himself and the spectators. The author illustrates this by saying, “they were...selected ..to lead the hunger artist down a couple of steps out of the cage.... And at this moment the hunger artist always fought back...Why did people want to rob him of the fame of fasting longer, not just so that he could become the greatest …show more content…
The literal confinement of the artist plays a key role in the understanding of the story but, his physical appearance sets him apart also. “He sat there pallid in black tights, with his ribs sticking out so prominently...sometimes...stretching an arm through the bars so that one might feel how thin it was...”(Kafka 7). He wanted to show that he was different from them physically here. He emphasized his difference by letting people feel the brittle bones of his body, as if to say, “Look at how skinny I am! You'll never get there!” His protruding bones and sunken in flesh distinguished him in the crowd whether or not he was in the cage. He is the personification of suffering and he likes it. It reinforces his ideology that he is divine because Jesus Christ also suffered a painful journey to divinity. The Anas may not think they’re closely related to God, but ,''Body image is a major deal,'' (Udovitch 20) to them. “Many of the girls...include their stats -- height, weight and goal weight – when posting on such sites.” (Udovitch 20). The girls, Anas, broadcast their measurements over the internet to do the same thing as the Hunger Artist. They feel a sense of satisfaction by separating themselves from people who they presume are fat. They will never be satisfied with themselves until they are down to literally, just skin
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
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
In conclusion, both stories are similar in themes but the Lottery is more of a false tradition and the Hunger Game is more of a false tradition and the Hunger Game is a punishment. These two stories value traditions and rituals so much and those who do not agree with it, do not challenge it because of social conformity, Human hypocrisy toward violence tradition and rituals. It is felt that in the stories, the people perform these traditions because they feel that they have too and have obedience towards the rules that were once put in place by man and enforced by fear as a society and the ones the started the tradition.
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.
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.
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.
Eliot (for his anti-Semitism), Miley Cyrus (racist music), and Iggy Azalea (racial slurs) are some prime examples of the kind of people who might might be found here. As in life they spoke to or of people as insignificant and repulsive animals, so now they will have to live out their deaths as animals without the pleasure of human speech. As one meanders past the pens this group is kept in, one might pick out the mooing of cattle. In life, these bovine animals believed other races to be incapable of becoming like the big, strong athletes of their own race so now they must forever be made of muscle that mankind enjoys eating. Perhaps, one might recognize familiar music coming from an ape howling. During these apes’ unfruitful years of life they believed a race to be inferior due to lack knowledge or agility. A third scoundrel one might glimpse is a racoon. In life these sinners could not bring themselves to view another race as anything but thieves. Now, they must forever wear the mask of thievery
My reading prioritizes theories of the body, subjectivity, consumption, gender and difference, refusing to see these works, or the practice of anorexia, as simply a testament to pressures on the contemporary female body or the demonstration of a cardinal relationship between the feminine and food. Instead, it locates these practices as a site of complex and, at times, resistant subjectivities. At the heart of my reading is recent sociological and anthropological theories on food’s role in the construction and signification of the subject and its relationship to the social and cultural order. My reading also incorporates psychoanalytic theories addressing the formation of subjectivity through pre-libidinal encounters with sustenance. This breadth of theories is essential, as the most complex discourses around food and anorexia resist reducing these concepts to matters of nature/culture, interior/exterior, or self/social.
Hunger is defined as a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food; in other words, the desire or craving to eat food. However, in Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist,” this character gives a different, more compound definition to this term. As stated towards the end of the story, the Hunger Artist says that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. With this being said, what does this character’s hunger truly insinuate? This insinuates that the Hunger Artist was not hungry for food, because instead he had a hunger for attention, fame, reputation, and honor. Franz Kafka was well-groomed to write a story about an isolated character, for he never married, his father detested him, and he was a Jew during
...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.
Throughout Kazu Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, he choices to depict children as outsiders to the world which can be furthered by the setting in Britain’s countryside because it helps give a sense distance from true reality. In the framework throughout his novel Ishiguro focuses on three main characters Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. These three students are seen by others to have an advantage because they were lucky enough to be raised at Hailsham by the guardians. Over the watchful eye of the Guardians the children were able to grow accustom to being different than others. This can be seen when the characters all mature and grow after they leave Hailsham and become accustomed to life at the cottages. There newly found freedoms at the cottages lead them to question many of their previous schooling standards and beliefs. These freedoms can be seen by every student trying to hold on to their sense of individuality through small and random collections. This suggests that humans attempt to create an appearance through their own belongings and incorporate into their own lives. The students at Hailsham are encouraged to seek creativity and individuality in the things they create which could include sculptures, paintings or poems. These many collections that each student holds close to themselves offers them a small chance for control in their life because they can pick and choose the pieces they would like to incorporate into their individual collections.
...r sympathy but to make a change in the food industry to prevent it to happen to others. Barbara keeps advocating no matter how long is taking her. In the role of social workers we should advocate for these policy that are affecting human rights.
The Hunger Games novel written by Suzanne Collins reflects significant issues in the reality world nowadays which relate to the humanity, the poverty, the violence,… It describes the issues through the characters and what happens in the story, and the most significant issue occurs throughout the novel is the gap between rich and poor people. In the beginning of the novel, Suzanne Collins describes clearly the scene of the poverty, the terrible fear of the 12-district’s villagers, in contrast to the wealthy of the Capitol’s citizens. The inequality of social classes becomes the theme of the novel because of its relation and the effects to the plots of the story. And the reason, which leads to that issue, is the policies of the dictatorship government controlled by the Capitol. The Capitol’s operation has affected the villagers’ rights, has made the districts become poorer and has kept them away from development. The Hunger Games novel’s theme – the inequality of social classes – is proved by the details in the story, which becomes a huge problem for the poor districts. This essay will examine what happens in the novel and why there is a big gap between people in one country, Panem.
From the Marxist views, film Hunger games discloses the evil sides of society. The film shows a strong oppression of the poor by the rich. The Hunger Games begins at Panem, a nation which consists of a wealthy Capitol and twelve impecunious district. Capitol is the rich and dominating class that takes charge of education and the media and keeps the districts in a state of hunger and poverty. Capitol holds a famous yet inhumane annually hunger game among twenty four teenagers that selected from the twelve districts. The game has only one winner which means all other people have to die. The brutal game strongly exemplifies the oppression that Capitol brings to districts. Actually, the hunger game is a punishment that admonishes...
Do you ever feel trapped when you are in a place that you have never been before? Isolation criticizes society since it does not let everyone be equal or have the same rights. Isolation can completely change a person, and it is usually for the worst. Society “acts” like they try to prevent isolation, but in reality they isolate people for certain reasons, then those people get judged for being “different.” Upon closer inspection it is human nature to deny equal rights because people that do not act, dress, or look the same are labeled as strange, and unfortunately, many times are not accepted by the majority of society. This gives authors a way to shine a light on society’s flaws.