? " Despite the sufferings of fasting, the Hunger Artist finds the recognition he receives for the act to be invaluable. The Hunger Artist finds fulfillment in what causes him malnourishment and irritability, and, eventually, the Hunger Artist dies of starvation due to his efforts to give his life meaning. The Artist is, essentially, a living contradiction.
Next, the Hunger Artist is revealed as a characterization of irony within the final words before his death, in which he admits his fasting to be not an art or skill worthy of causing a spectacle, but, simply, a dislike of any food. By the time the Hunger Artist reaches his death, he has fallen out of the public eye and has resorted to joining the circus. Displayed in a cage alongside the show's main attraction of caged beasts, this is where the Artist accomplishes his longest-ever fast and consequently perishes. Before the Artist's death, he utters his final words: "I couldn't find a food which tasted good to me. If I had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart's content, like you and everyone else. " The Artist reveals that his performance was not an art or skill, but just a public display of his picky eating habits. The Artist does not die for his art, but rather, in vain; his death is caused by nothing but a longing for attention. Rather than accepting that he cannot find a food that he likes, the Hunger Artist chooses to make a spectacle of it. The Artist had the choice to silently ignore his hunger and go about his life without food, or to eat despite his distaste for anything. Instead, the Hunger Artist deems his ease in fasting an "art " and turns it into a performance, desperate for the recognition and acknowledgement of others and lacking any real talent to obtain such with.
Finally, the Hunger Artist's existence is made ironic as his life ends devoid of the recognition in which he dies for.
