The Hunger Artist Analysis

The hunger artist is a story that can be viewed in many aspects in life. Many people want to leave this earth knowing that they accomplish some type of dream, goal, task or some type of legacy. His dream was to be the most phenomenal faster the world has ever seen, even into his death. Besides the dream, the hunger artist wanted nothing more than the people to be proud of what he was doing and the praise from the spectators. There is no excitement to this task but this dream that the hunger artist had was a phenomenal one indeed.

The main character of the story is the hunger artist. He is a professional faster that thrives off attention of the people. He wants nothing more to prove to the spectators that he is the greatest faster of all time.

Impresario devotes himself to the hunger artist for his own personal reason. He exploits art and artists for his own personal gain. Impresario plays a big role in the hunger artist life. Impresario spends a lot of time with the hunger artist. He has been with him since the beginning when the hunger artist fame rose to the top. He would know him better than anyone else. I would not call them friends simply because when the performance is going on, Impresario would make fun him and taunt him anything to enhance the excitement of what is going on in the cage which cannot be very much. He is in a cage fasting, there is not much he can do to dramatize the given situation but it got the hunger artist famous so there cannot be much complaining

The cage that the hunger artist was in represented disaffection from society. It divides up the two worlds that he lives in, the world of spectators and the world the spectacle in this sense to achieve perfection as the hunger artist. The cage also has a symbolic meaning not only for the hunger artist’s relationship to spectators but for the hunger artist himself. The cage is represents the hunger artist’s body, that he feels imprisoned in. The spectators see a pathetic man who is in a cage and when no one is looking cheating on his fast. The hunger artist understands the spectators’ position outside the cage. Also, the cage also represents the hunger artist security; it protects him from those who do not understand him and his art.

The clock in the cage represents to his body’s limitations. The clock’s presence exposes the hunger artist’s reality by reminding him the present. The clock is a deception of the hunger artists of his efforts in becoming an immortal, which is impossible because his is not God. Just like all other human beings, the hunger artist is subject to his physical and earthly demands, including the passage of time. Human cannot exist without food, as we humans cannot exist outside of time this is just how we live our lives as human