The perception of what is and what others think are two completely aspects of reality. In A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, the author introduces a character known only to the reader as the Hunger Artist. As a fast professional, Hunger Artist's intentions and the legitimacy of his work are never truly understood by the public; not even after his death. By using a depressive mood, contrasting setting, and an isolationist motif, the author conveys the message that the person we think we are and the person others think we are will never be perceived as the same person. A persistent feeling of depression persists. the artist's point of view and opinions about himself. According to critics like Jim Breslin, the Hunger artist's tendency toward depression is partly caused by his inability to progress further in his art. Breslin connects this sense to that of a writer: “Kafka equates the suffering of starving to the suffering that a writer undertakes in writing a story” (Breslin). However, while this sense of striving to break one's own artistic boundaries is evident, the story goes deeper than that. After realizing that there was no way to fully legitimize his art, “the starving artist's dissatisfaction continued to gnaw at his insides” (Kafka 8). The artist's dissatisfaction does not only constitute a resemblance to art; it describes an undeniable truth about all of humanity: that we are our own worst critics. Individuals systematically tell themselves to go further when they have reached limits acceptable to the public. However, other critics, such as Zahra Karimi, believe that the dissatisfaction and suffering are the art of the hunger artist himself rather than the effect of his craft. Karimi states: “misunderstandings… in the middle of a paper… which one could invent, for the starving artist was not deceitful – he worked honestly – but the world cheated him out of its reward” (Kafka 7 ). It didn't matter how far he had gone, how much he had suffered, or how others had seen him before. He was forgotten, and the mere shadow of what he left behind was razed to the ground of creativity: leaving everything he ever was isolated to its very end. Through the depiction of the Hunger Artist as connected to written works, writers, and art itself, the author conveys a truth that creates one of the greatest ironies of existence: the person that we are and the person who are never one and the same person. It’s an understanding that even tongues can’t get around. It is all the more ironic that this essay does not entirely correspond to Kafka's message, but whether it does or not we can never really say..