1. Help appreciate Kafka's short story "The Hungry Artist"

Without anyone's understanding and support, the lonely artist still insists on his yearning for the highest art. .

He was born and died for art, and worked hard to reach the highest level of his art.

Some people say that he performs hunger strikes as a means of making a living, but I think the hunger strike is more about reaching the "highest level" of his art.

His understanding of art is not just as simple as making a living. It is conceivable that art has become the purpose of his existence.

Later, due to people's incomprehension and lack of support, he was sent to the circus and kept in a cage with the beasts for people to visit. He was no different from a real animal...

In the end, he explained his hunger strike "because I couldn't find food that suited my taste." Is there really no food suitable for him in the world, or is he not giving food suitable for him a chance to enter his mouth. I think only he knows this question.

Although this novel is about the hungry artist, I think the author wants to express his inner desire for art and writing through the deeds of a huge artist. It expresses the feeling of loneliness due to lack of understanding and support from others for one's art.

In addition to expressing his own emotions, this novel also contains the author's satire on interpersonal relationships.

Artists and caretakers (butchers), artists and managers, artists and audiences... Every relationship shows the distrust between people.

Who can still have trust in themselves... 2. After reading "The Hunger Artist"

[After reading "The Hunger Artist"] After reading "The Hunger Artist" Reading Kafka "The Hungry Artist", the first thing that appears in front of the eyes is the image of a group of "spectators", just like the tea guests in Lu Xun's works who looked at the fate of "Kong Yiji" indifferently, like the group of numb onlookers who looked at the heads of revolutionaries, "The Hungry Artist" 》Reflections after reading.

Coincidentally, there is an amazing tacit understanding between China and the West when it comes to describing indifferent spectators. Perhaps, numbness does not belong to a nation, but is a common "evil root" nature of human beings.

When people generally realize the joy of cruelty, innocent children are not spared. "When the weather is fine, everyone moves the cage to the open air. This is done for the sake of the children. They have a special interest in the hunger artist." "When they saw the pale and skinny hunger artist wearing a black tight suit, They looked nervous and dumbfounded. In order to be brave, they held each other's hands tightly." The children's indifference made people tremble, and people couldn't help shouting like Lu Xun, "Save the child...", and the children's numbness , people have to worry about the future of this nation, and have to ask: How can such a generation create a bright future? The hunger artist's own numbness and ignorance are even more shocking. "Sometimes he politely nodded to everyone, sometimes he smiled hard and answered everyone's questions.

He also stretched out his arms from time to time. Go outside the fence and let people touch him to feel how skinny he is." He was pursuing his so-called art, but what he lost was his human rights and basic human dignity.

Long-term "performance" and persistent "belief" made him willing to give up his own thinking ability for this. He is no longer ashamed of it, but is proud of it. This is better than "Kong Yiji" written by Lu Xun is even more pitiful. Perhaps, everyone’s beliefs and ideals should be respected. Let’s not mock the dream of the “Hungry Artist” for now, but as long as we look at his ideals, we have to think about such a common survival dilemma in life: Constantly proving yourself and never being able to prove yourself.

"The Hunger Artist will never eat during his hunger show, and even if someone forces him to eat, he will remain indifferent. The honor of his art does not allow him to do so.

"

In this way, he proved himself and his professionalism as a true artist. However, his honesty was not understood by others. "They always think that hunger artists are absolutely "He has some clever tricks to get some stock to fill his stomach." "These guards are even more impressed by their clever skills and can actually eat while singing." In fact, his efforts are futile and ridiculous. What is the purpose of life? What? He has never thought about it, because ignorant beliefs have taken over his mind.

I think the most important thing in life is to have your own thoughts and prove it to yourself every time. He was intoxicated by his wonderful performance in the cage. "Only the hunger artist knows it best. Only he can be regarded as the audience who is most satisfied with his hunger performance." He is very satisfied with his performance. The performance was satisfying, but not completely satisfying, "and he was never satisfied.

Perhaps his skinny body was not caused by hunger at all, but by dissatisfaction with himself, so that some people did not come to watch the hunger show out of sympathy for him. People can't bear to see him being tortured." This makes people see a ridiculous and pitiful image of an artist. He has not found the real cause of his tragic ending, and he can't find the real reason after all, because he has already It’s a complete shell. “Whenever a round of hunger performances ends, the hunger artist never leaves the cage voluntarily.”

While the artist is performing his own hunger art, people are also performing it. Their own cruelty. "On the fortieth day, the door of the cage was opened and flowers were placed around the cage." They used this ritual to reveal their cruel nature and show their ugly faces.

"The manager held the hungry artist's slender waist with both hands, a little too cautiously. His movements and expressions reminded people that he was not holding a living person, but an extremely fragile object." "She first stretched her neck as much as possible, so that At least your beautiful appearance can avoid "disaster". In the eyes of these people, the hunger artist is not a real artist, and he should not get the respect he deserves. The hunger artist is just a tool for them to amuse. After reading "The Hunger Artist" 》. And it is extremely sad when human beings are trapped in such a situation of unawareness.

When the hunger artist's only way to express his own value was gradually lost, his mood became worse and worse. However, he did not wake up, but was still trapped in his great self. In dreams. He didn't even dare to face up to his declining performance art. "What he was angry about was this distortion of facts. It was obviously the result of ending the hunger show early, but people wanted to describe it as the reason why the performance had to be stopped."

His troubles make people read about the helplessness and sadness of human existence, and they may even forget to criticize his ignorance, and instead feel heartbroken for this poor artist. His persistence did not reverse the decline of hunger art performances. “This hunger artist who was once loved by everyone found himself forgotten by the lively and addicted audience one day, and they flocked to other performance venues.” “It seemed that people had reached a private agreement. There was a tacit understanding, and the atmosphere of disgust for hunger performances was everywhere." At this time, the hunger artist had almost completely lost the value of his own existence. The disillusionment of his dream left him wondering where to go? "Change to other professions. Not only is he too old, but more importantly, he has a crazy pursuit of hunger performances."

He still did not wake up, he still insisted on his ideal, so he was hired by a circus and continued his hunger show. Although he was able to continue his great performances, and his hungry acting skills did not fade with age, his performance ideal of "truly shocking the world and achieving an unprecedented sensation" could not be realized at all. .

The reality is already like this, but artists are still blindly intoxicated in their longing for a bright future. His pity and sadness are reflected here, for an inherently foolish dream.

3. Appreciation of the works of The Hungry Artist

The theme of "The Hungry Artist" is to find spiritual destination in the absurd and ruthless alienated world.

1. Character opposition highlights the tragedy of the artist. Standing on the opposite side of the starving artist are the people watching his performance, including the performance manager, the butcher, and the children, who are all typical. They not only show the absurdity and cruelty of the alienated world, but also show the writer's sympathy for this alienated world.

In the eyes of the performance manager, The Hunger Artist is a "work on a haystack" and "an extremely fragile item." In fact, he prefers to regard the hunger artist as an object and a tool. He is selling people the pain of hunger that the hunger artist endures.

Therefore, when the hunger performance was completed, he hugged the hunger artist and "probably shook him slightly secretly, so that the legs and upper body of the hunger artist swayed involuntarily." The purpose of this was to strengthen The pain of the hungry artist is used to please the audience, so that the audience can obtain great psychological satisfaction and reach a state of excitement. The show manager sells not only the physical pain of the starving artist, but also his mental pain.

Of course he also praised the hunger artist. When the Hungry Artist gets angry because his audience doesn't understand his performance, he "praises his ambition, good intentions, and great self-restraint," but then quickly changes the subject and uses photos for sale to "easily The artist’s statement is completely refuted.”

What is even more tragic is that although the performance manager is closer to the starving artist than anyone else (even the guards), he does not truly understand the intrinsic value of the starving show itself. He is willing to destroy what the Hungry Artist sees as an ideal to ensure external success (with a cheering audience).

The child is a symbol in the novel. Children are innocent, kind and pure. Their beautiful hearts have not been polluted by external society and the environment, and their innocent nature has not been destroyed by the outside world.

Children appear as the opposite of adults. When adults came to see the Hunger Artist with the mentality of “having fun and catching up with the fashion”, the children were “dumbfounded” when facing the extremely pale and skinny Hunger Artist, and “for safety’s sake, they talked to each other. Holding hands”.

When adults are no longer interested in hunger shows, the children's "bright and searching eyes reveal something that belongs to the future and a more benevolent new era." Fuka was helpless about the interpersonal relationships in the alienated society and the reality of the loss of human nature. He pinned his hope of reconstructing human nature on children who have not yet been corroded by the secular world.

The people guarding the Hungry Artist are butchers. The general impression given by butchers is that they are cold and cruel, have no sympathy, regard life as trivial, and have a kind of philistine-style cunning.

It is no accident that Kafka used the butcher as the starving artist's caretaker. They symbolize the most inhumane and most severely alienated people in an alienated society.

Not only did they monitor the hunger artist day and night, but they also tried every means to seduce, test and tease him. They deliberately hid and played cards at a distance to see if he would eat secretly.

When the Hungry Artist forced himself to sing to show how wronged he was for saying he was eating, they joked that he was "skilled enough to be able to sing and eat at the same time." They not only get pleasure from the starvation artist being skinny and pale, but also inflict mental pain on the starvation artist to satisfy their own despicable pleasure.

2. The decline of the artist's social status highlights the tragedy of the world. The artist's hunger performance suffered a sudden "dramatic change", which forced him to be employed by a circus and became a small role in a huge circus. It has become an inconspicuous part of the circus landscape. The hunger artist has been completely abandoned by this group of "fun-loving people", who have fallen in love with the little leopard, which symbolizes physical pleasure.

Since the Western Renaissance, religion has suffered the same fate as the starving artist.

If there is no faith in people's hearts, all kinds of moral concepts will fall apart at an extremely fast speed.

Here, the only moral code is the "law of the jungle". People have become little leopards. They don't need freedom or ideals above the world, but as long as they have something to bite between their teeth. food. The Hungry Artist—or the noble ideal he represented—was ruthlessly destroyed, and nothing else can take his place in the world.

The starving artist is alone, and the entire space for his survival and activities is the iron cage of his performance. The little leopard is described at the end of the novel: "Its noble body has everything, not only its sharp claws, but it also seems to carry freedom with it.

Its freedom seems to be hidden somewhere in its teeth. Place." The audience crowded around the cage and were reluctant to leave, admiring the little leopard's freedom and joy.

It can be seen that the cage is only a relative space. People who have no sense of freedom live in larger cages than the hunger artist. In contrast, the hunger artist has more. He at least has the freedom to confront the world as an independent individual.

But specifically, the freedom of hungry artists and audiences is not a concept. The hunger artist does not pursue freedom of movement, nor does he seek the freedom of carnal or materialistic pleasure.

His freedom lies in his conquest of time. In this iron cage, the only valuable thing is the clock, and the movement of the hands is more meaningful than anything else.

Not only because the clock will announce the result of his "persistence", but also because it will urge him to "persist" to the prescribed 40 days, or even far beyond these 40 days. In the novel, Kafka had his hungry artist repeatedly repeat the word "persistence", or he made "persistence" the main character of the hungry artist.

"He will continue to be hungry" appears many times in the article. Obviously, Kafka used "food" and "persistence" to symbolize materialism and ascetic idealism respectively.

It can be said that the two are indispensable dimensions for understanding this novel. The author tells readers through the hunger artist: Even people who find the purpose and ideal of their lives through hunger performances like the hunger artist still have to endure the mediocre worldly life and the misfortunes life gives.

Of course, endurance and self-denial are not what the hunger artist cares about. What he cares about is hunger, which he regards as his life's work. 4. Thoughts after reading "The Hunger Artist"

Thoughts after reading "The Hunger Artist" "The Hunger Artist" is the single best short story written by Kafka in 1922 and last revised two months before his death. A novel; it is also a symbolic work with many commentators and many ambiguities.

Kafka used realism to artistically show the survival encounters and contradictions of a pure artist as well as the absurdity of life. The story of the novel is simple and easy to read, but it leaves us with deep confusion and endless thoughts after reading it.

Whether you are confused or thinking, let’s leave the discussion for later, let’s go into the text together first! The hunger artist went through forty days of extreme hunger to perform for the audience on the big stage of life - I think it was a display - pure hunger art, attracting clouds of audience and bursts of applause. The artist is not intoxicated by this, because he is soberly aware that his audience and fans are not really appreciating his pure art, but appreciating his acting talent; in the eyes of the audience, a person does not eat or drink Being able to endure hunger for forty days is simply a fantasy. The so-called hunger show is no different from a circus performance or a juggler's performance.

This really makes the artist miserable, because "except himself, no one even the experts know that hunger performance is such an easy thing. It is really the easiest thing in the world." .

A person who devotes himself to pure art relies on the artist's conscience and sense of honor. During the performance, "no matter what the circumstances, he cannot eat anything." What's more, he is not performing at all, but displaying the art itself. "But no one believed it." From the performance manager to the caretaker elected by everyone, "no one could seriously understand his mood."

This is the real reason why artists feel pain. After a few years, people began to get tired of this hunger show.

In order to revive the hunger art, the poor artist had to be hired by the circus and began his acting career working with animals. On the day of the performance, the crowds of spectators "passed by him without even a glance" and went straight to the beast performance area. No one was willing to stop in front of him, and even the stewards were too lazy to change cards and count for him. .

During the entire performance, no one remembered the poor artist, and no one knew how many days he had been hungry. It was not until the end of the performance that the steward discovered the dying artist when he was picking at the pile of hay in the cage.

What is puzzling is that the hunger artist's final words are both contradictory and intriguing. Kafka wrote: "I have been hoping that you would appreciate my performance of hunger," said the hunger artist.

"We also appreciate it," the steward replied accommodatingly. "But you shouldn't appreciate it,".

"Because I can only starve, I have no other choice," said the hunger artist.

"Why don't you have any other option?" the steward said.

"Because I can't find food that suits my taste.

If I find such food, please believe that I will not alarm the audience like you and everyone else, Eat well." These were his last words, but in his eyes with dilated pupils, there was no longer pride, but still a firm belief: he would continue to be hungry.

When the hunger artist died, it should be said that he died for his beliefs and to stick to his pure art. To be precise, he died because he "could not find food that suited his taste." Instead, there was a vibrant black panther, which wolfed down the food it longed for, attracting crowds of onlookers.

The story ends with the hungry artist being hastily buried, but it is difficult to sort out the chaotic thoughts after reading, and the confusion accompanying reading always lingers in the heart and is difficult to let go. What exactly does Kafka want to tell us through this novel? "Although I can live, I cannot survive."

If Kafka's words can be the key to our understanding of his works, then we have reason to say that the survival dilemma of the hungry artist is ours Modern people's survival dilemma stems from the contradiction between man and society, the contradiction between elegance and vulgarity, and the contradiction between spirit and materiality. First of all, each of us is both an individual with self-awareness and a social person at the same time.

Social value orientation and social fashion all affect people's lives and thinking. When society uses "tickets, houses, and cars" as symbols of success, people have to lower their noble heads in front of material interests, like hunger artists who maintain themselves in the face of fame and fortune, stick to their beliefs, and would rather starve to death than live an ignoble existence. , haven’t they also been reduced to the circus and the company of animals? In real life, although there are many people who outwardly worship "nobility" like the audience of The Hungry Artist, who in their heart would really regard "fame and wealth as floating clouds"? Who would imitate Boyi Shuqi who would rather starve to death than "eat Zhou millet"? As a hungry artist with a firm belief in the pursuit of elegant art, he "can't find food that suits his taste", no one believes in his art, and he is unwilling to reconcile with reality. How can such a person survive in real life? Secondly, the Hungry Artist and the Black Panther symbolize elegance and vulgarity respectively.

The elegant artist is deserted and dies of hunger; the vulgar black panther is crowded with viewers, enjoying the food and full of vitality. This is reality.

The ancients said: When spring comes and snow comes, there are few who are harmonious. Elegant art is not accepted by the public; elegant art does not belong to life, it is art itself.

Otherwise, why did Yu Boya in ancient times stop playing the qin for the rest of his life because of the death of his close friend Zhong Ziqi? Hungry artists perform art to the public and seek approval from the audience. This is tantamount to playing the harp to a cow, which is inherently inelegant. Since you have no close friends, why should you succumb to the circus and be confused with vulgarity? Even if pedantic artists don't learn from Yu Boya, they can still learn from today's Yi Zhongtian, "academic point of view, public taste, elegance and popular taste, suitable for all ages", isn't it possible to achieve fame and gain both fame and fortune? Artists who don't know how to adapt have no idea that reality is a small thing if they are out of moral integrity, and a big thing if they starve to death! As long as you live, there will be milk and bread, so why worry about "not being able to find food that suits your taste"? Thirdly, hunger artists pursue pure spirituality and do not eat food that does not suit their appetite. In a sense, there is a tendency to oppose spirituality and materiality. This can only be imitated by a very small number of people with high moral standards and cannot be accepted by the public. People need some kind of spiritual support in life, just as Kafka said: "If in the heart." 5. Several questions about Kafka's hungry artist

Host, it is said that Kafka was When I was critically ill, I burst into tears when I read "The Hungry Artist", which shows the importance of this article in the author's heart.

Answers to your three questions below:

1. Popularity

The Hungry Artist's behavior was highly praised by people at first and was very popular. However, as time went by, people became accustomed to his performances and lost their novelty, so they became less popular.

2. Yes, because the hunger artist spent his whole life pursuing his career of hunger performance. From the beginning when it attracted much attention to when no one cared about it, he never gave up until the end of his life.

3. As in the article, it will be popular for a while because there is no such performance by the Hungry Artist. People will rush to watch the performance out of curiosity, and when people are no longer curious about it, they will also It won’t be popular anymore.

The poster asked these three questions very stupidly, and I answered them very stupidly for you.