Compare and Contrast - Life and Times of Michel K and The hunger artist
Both authors J.M Coetzee and Franz Kafka accentuate the idea of alienation and absurd through their writings “Life and times of Michel K ” and “a hunger artist”. The authors use a special technique, which does not require any feeling, making the stories impersonal and monotonous. Through this technique the authors manage to give us the impression that our characters always find a masochistic way to assuage their loneliness. In Life and Times of Michael K our main character Michel K creates this impression by always staying in the dark (in the night) and by wanting to be like a worm and become part of the Earth “I am more like an earth worm, he thought. Which is also a kind or gardener. Or a mole, also a gardener, that does not tell stories because it lives in silence.”(pg 182). This emphasizes the tone in our story, which is monotonous and melancholic. The book is written is such a way that makes the main characters indifferent and absurd. The style of writing is similar to the Kafkaesque style of writing, surreal and impersonal.
