Kafka Narcissism

“A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka, tells the story of a hunger artist, a man who’s job is to fast in front of crowds of people. In the beginning of the story, the artist loves the crowd and loves interacting with them, but as the story goes on, the people become less and less interested in his amazing feats of fasting. As they become less interested, the artist begins to become more and more destined to be unhappy because he depends on others’ understanding to authenticate his performance. He feels deep contempt for his spectators, but because the nature of the performance he requires spectators. The hunger artist relies on the people he hopes to avoid. So why would Kafka write this whole story only to reveal in the end that he was only fasting

His life is one full of narcissism and abuse. The hunger artist hates what he does, but due to the way he’s lived his life, he is so narcissistic that he can’t stop. Even after the 40 days have ended and the hunger artist is allowed to eat, he doesn’t want to. The narcissism leads to the artist throwing his life away so that he can live in a cage and perform for people that don’t care about him. Even when fasting is no longer as popular as it used to be the artist does not stop, instead he continues fasting. He no longer performs in front of crowds of thousands of people. Now he sits in a cage above some wild animals at the circus and hopes people walk by and notice him. Dr. Karbelnig states that this is a perfect example of narcissism, “The artists used to starve himself for the entertainment of others, but now he does it because he doesn’t know how to live any other life” (Karbelnig 965). The hunger artist is a sad man living a sad life, there is no one remotely close to him and the last person to see him before he died was a random worker at the circus where he performed. The exact definition of narcissism is, “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one 's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” This describes the hunger artist perfectly: he is extremely selfish, he has a grandiose view of his own talent, and he craves admiration for what he does. At the end of his life, it was the narcissism that killed him, not starving