5 QUESTIONS AND STORY RE-WRITE :]

5 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION :]
1./ Why would the people of the city want to watch his human during fasting?
2./. Why would they want to convince him to do this to himself?
3./ Why did the children think this was such a cool thing to watch?
4./ Why would the circus want to let him do this fasting again?
5./ What is the important lesson to learn from this article?


STORY RE-WRITE :]

Back in the day, being a hunger artist was a big thing. It brought in a lot of money to people who had one, but now-a-days, its not a big thing anymore. Those were different times. Back then, hunger artists caught the eye and attention of the entire city who had one, now if you were to see one, it would make no sense, or it would be a disappointment to some people. Back then, children loved watching hunger artists because they would always look and then their mouths would open in amazement because they’ve never seen anything like that before, but then some of there parents would pay no attention to them. There was always a constant observer watching the fasting happening. They would watch to make sure that he didn’t eat anything or sleep, but some of the observers depressed him when they would watch him at night because all they did was sit there and play cards. He liked it when the observers sat right at the bar and who was not satisfied with the dim backlighting of the room, illuminated him with electric flashlights. He liked when he could sit there and just joke and tell stories with them. No one person could stay with him every day and every night to see the true observations of how he was really handling it, so people took it in shifts. The hunger Artist started realizing how easy it was becoming to fast, he felt like he could do it forever. But the people of the city thought he was just a publicity seeker and just wanted attention and this was his way of getting it. The impresano set a limit for how long the hunger artist can fast for, and it was 40 days, and once those 40 days were up he had to get the hunger artist out of the cage. Once that day happened, everyone came to the amphitheatre, where he was for those 40 days, and brought doctors and a military band to celebrate that he survived the forty days of fasting. After they tried to get him out the cage, that he was so accustomed too, he didn’t want to stop. He thought to himself, why stop now, when he was in his best form yet? Then the crowd started getting mad that he was doing this. Next we was supposed to stand up in front of everyone and eat something. He made himself think that the food was going to make him feel sick, so it did. After that he got up and had the impresano talk more about him and then all the sudden he fainted on a poor lady, and she freaked out and started screaming, because he came half unconscious. Then the impresano finally put some food in the half unconscious hunger artist, it was supposed to take attention away from the position he was in right now. He lived this way for a long time. Every now and then though he would take little breaks of being a hunger artist. He loved being in the spotlight and being honored for his way of living like this. Later in the years, people who looked back on the hunger artist in disgust. They couldn’t believe how big of a hit that was and they thought it was so wrong, but the hunger artist didn’t care. The impresano was also mad, because he wanted people to still like it as well. Sooner or later, the hunger artist found a circus that would let him sit in a cage next to the animals and become the hunger artist again and let people come and see him. The hunger artist started turning into an animal almost. He would climb around his cage and try to scare the people thinking he was an animal because that’s how he was treated when he was in this cage. But this enthusiasm only brought smiles to the faces of the supervisors, not the families and people who went and saw this. Most people would either stare at him in disbelief or he couldn’t tell if they were staring at him or the animals next to him. A child went and looked the hunger artist and didn’t understand why he was like that, or why he was in a cage like all the rest of the animals, the child’s parents didn’t even know what to say about it. Then the hunger artist thought it would be better if he wasn’t near the animals, so maybe people would actually come and see him and not the animals, but he was wrong. People started not paying attention to the hunger artist at all, like he wasn’t even there. Then one day the supervisor went to the hunger artist cage to find him hiding behind Straw. They pushed the straw away and said “Are you still fasting? When are you going to stop fasting?” Then the hunger artist whispered, “ Forgive me everything.” “We forgive you” said the supervisor. “ I always wanted you to admire my fasting.” said the hunger artist. “We do.” said the supervisor. “But you shouldn’t admire it.” said the hunger artist. “ but why shouldn’t we.” the supervisor said. “ Because I couldn’t find food which I enjoyed. 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.” Those were his last words. After that the supervisor told everyone to tidy up the cage and the hunger artist. They ended up putting a young panther in his cage. In the end , the hunger artist realized that he had made a fool of himself in that cage all of his life when he could have been living a regular life, like everyone else. The panther represents what the hunger artist could have done if he didn’t make himself a hunger artist. The panther lacked nothing, it had a good home, freedom, and food, which the hunger artist could have had if he didn’t demand for all the attention.