A Hunger Artist

This slightly creepy short story is about a man that fasts for other peoples entertainment. This is both creepy, and extremely interesting. It talks about the affects that audience and change have on a persons mind.

The story starts off with the man being adored by people all around, people come flocking to him to marvel at the sight of him, a man who is able to not eat for days on end. They look at him simply as a circus attraction, which he is, and use him for their own personal gain, something that probably makes him feel happy with himself, as he is an artist, somebody that performs so that others may take emotion from it.
This happiness is why the hunger artist got into the job in the first place, a way to share his emotion with the many people that come and watch him.

However, as the story goes on, people get bored of the Hunger Artist. I can't blame them, honestly. Once you've seen a man starving himself, I'm fairly sure you've seen them all. It can't be that exciting. Of course, when people are bored with something, they stop watching it. And this of course means that the people watching the Hunger Artist would stop. And as I said at the top of this blog, having people be happy with his work is what makes the main character happy with himself. Therefore, he feels upset.

This is similar to Hunger, where the main character is constantly trying to make other people happy, so that he can feel happy about himself. Examples include when he tries to give money to those that are less fortunate than himself. In Hunger Artist, the main character eventually gets replaced by a young panther, something that takes the attention of the people that come to the circus, and something that makes the Hunger Artist feel as if he has failed at his craft. The main character in Hunger feels the same way, when his articles don't get published, because nobody can read them, and he is unable to show people his fantastic writing.