SOURCE: "A Hunger Artist," in Franz Kafka: A Study of the Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1990, pp. 80-96.

In the following excerpt, Thiher examines "A Hunger Artist" in the context of Kafka's ironic commentary on the role of the artist throughout several of his works.

The notion of the "artist" in postromantic Germany could still conjure up the image of a creative demiurge, though Kafka's artists hardly fit this description. They are more likely to call forth a snicker. Kafka is hardly the first writer to present the artist as a laughter-provoking beast hardly worthy of serious consideration; I ask the reader to consider the following lamentation about the poet's plight by a romantic writer whom Kafka read with the greatest interest, E.T.A. Hoffmann: "Once glowed in the breast of the chosen ones the inner, holy striving to express in glorious words that which they had most...