The Hunger Artist

All the preparation for this day had finally come. The hunger artist could finally perform his art. The day he claimed into his cage he made a promise to the cheering crowd not to come out for any reason, not even food, for another forty days, and the door was locked tight. Many people came to see the spectacle and that’s the way the artist liked it. Some of the onlookers didn’t believe his true fasting abilities and sat for hours hatching for the slightest scrap of food to be devoured by the thin man. Other true believers stood and watched with their full bellies and happy jobs. But the hunger artist with nowhere else to go stayed where he was.

This frail man who practiced his art any time he could, loved his job. The amazed children who came and felt his bony arms, the crowd of the cheer and his self-denial, and the actual act of not eating pleased him.

After the forty days he was led out of his cage and shown to the cheering crowd how small his body had become. The crowd cheered as always, and after some time the artist was shown to some food where the entire crowd toasted to his self-denial.

Several years of this wore down and the old man. He now wanted to not eat for longer, and he was tired of only going forty days. So he left the act and joined a circus. Here he was left to his own devices. There was no acting frail and he was allowed to fast as much as he wanted. With no limits he was forced to continue fasting, with this continued fasting the viewers got tired of his antics. The hunger artist was left in a cage in a small passageway to the animals and was just another obstacle in everyone’s way. It was a consensus with everyone that it would be better if he just left.

With no other choices as he was now an old man and enjoyed fasting so much he had no other choice but to stay. After the circus lost count of how many days he had been at his job so did the artist. He began to not even enjoy the few onlookers who had the time to glance at the body in a cage on the way to the animals. One day the nuisance died and it was a turning point for the cage. It could finally have an occupant who was interesting and drew a crowd of cheering onlookers, one thing the hunger artist once was able to do but had lost in his final performance in which he died doing what he once loved to do.

The cage was filled with a leopard, which was lively and jumped at the passing crowds and was especially great at feeding times when it would rip into its food and devour it. Once the circus got rid of the burden known as the hunger artist it could now thrive in everything it did.


1. Why did the hunger artist undergo his transformation?
2. Is the hunger artist a symbol for today’s society?
3. Why would the hunger artist starve himself to death just because he didn’t like to eat?
4. How would the artist survive for forty days without any food?Was the artist really that old when he died?