Michael K discussion 1
What is the role of hunger in the novel? Of time? How do they connect to Michael's "journey?" See p. 68 - 69, 101 - 102, 115.
posted by Randy Barnett @ 11:04 AM
What is the role of hunger in the novel? Of time? How do they connect to Michael's "journey?" See p. 68 - 69, 101 - 102, 115.
posted by Randy Barnett @ 11:04 AM
4 Comments:
The description of K's hunger evolves in the book. In the beginning of the book, K is aware of his hunger. And when possible, indulges in and savors food in order to satisfy his hunger - seen in the part at the hospital, drinking the tea and eating the biscuits or when he comes to Visagies home and kills the goat. However, as the book goes on and K grows older, K looses his appetite and no longer feels hunger. By page 100, K comments that "hunger was a sensation he did not feel and barely remembered." I'm am not exactly sure why K goes through such a change. Maybe because in the beginning food is the only satisfaction he can find but as K goes out on his journey he finds more meaning to his life - not really sure?
Throughout his life, Michael K has been deprived of many luxuries; food is one of these luxeries. It represents the desolateness of his life at that time, in relation to how much understanding and purpose he has of his position at that time. Along his journey to Prince Albert, he experiences a lack of food, and sometimes steals food from farms, and buys food once he receives a money donation from a soldier. In the same way, he does not know where he is going, but as he questions concepts such as the death of his mother, and his belief in helping people, he establishes himself more securely on the earth. Thus, as he becomes more sure of himself and conscious of what he is doing, he eats more. Food also represents the amount of nourishment he is receiving. For instance, "as a child K had been hungry" because he grew up in Huis Norenius, a school that was run like a prison. Thus, without any TLC, he was "starved into stillness." But along his journey, he meets some people who are welcoming to him, something he had not typically experienced. Thus, with the banknote he receives, the man who would sell him the food in Prince Albert, and the family that takes him in, he eats. "At last I am living off the land" states that not only is he receiving food nourishment from the earth, but he is feeling care and support from other people.
At first when Mr. K is growing his garden, hunger seems irrelevant. However, when he is in transition between places, hunger will begin to be his main weakness. As sam said (self sufficiency) I think that growing food is a step towards independence which he has not had his entire life. When he is hungry, he is failing at the process of becoming more independent and it is almost like a step backwards for him.
When he was working in the city, his basic necessities were accessible but now that he has to think how he will get his next meal, he has grown as a more responsible man. His "journey" through hunger has forced him into situations that are mentally difficult and serve to "harden" or toughen his ability to become independent. For example, instead of " [slapping] the creature on its haunch and [seeing] it scramble to its feet and trot off" he learns to accept what he has done so that he can "slit the belly and pushed his arm into the slit"--something that he would not have been able to do several minutes before if it were not for his extreme hunger.
As the story progresses, we see K diverting more and more from his human chaacteristics and towards that of an animal. His beliefs about his hunger directly corresond to this transition. In the beginning of the book he embraces food as a luxory, as most human's do, he eats normal packaged food and allows himself to indulge in its flavors. When the man at the hostpital gives him the pie to eat it brings tears to his eyes. As he runs farther away from civilization, his eating practices become more and more primitive. He goes from eating packaged food to growing and catching his own food, as he did on the farm. When he moves up to the mountains though, he completely digresses to his primal ways, eating anything that he can put in his mouth, becoming more like an animal.
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