Black Boy Hunger Essay

In Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Wright explores the concept of hunger. As a young child, Richard’s father leaves him, imposing poverty upon Richard and his family. This brings great hardship to Richard, leaving him hungry around the clock. Richard learns to read, and begins to read novels. He is fascinated by the plots and emotions evoked in him through reading fairy tale stories. Richard saves up enough money to move to Memphis, being provided a home by a kind lady named Ms. Moss. As Richard finds a job and stable food source, he once again hungers for books, beginning to read H.L. Mencken. Throughout the novel, the juxtaposition between Richard’s physical and imaginative hunger alludes to his journey to liberate himself from internal shackles.

After witnessing his babysitter Ella immersed in a novel, Richard takes interest in books. He later reflects upon how he “hungered for the sharp, frightening, breathtaking, almost painful excitement that the story had given me[him]” (40). Wright opts to use “hungered” as a verb, rather than as a noun, as it is used when he is in need of food. When Richard’s intellectual hunger is activated, he begins looking for entertainment, rather than the sensation of a lack of control implied when hunger is used as a noun. Wright uses the term “sharp,” a word similar to “pangs” from the previous quote. When Richard is physically hungry, the sharp hunger is negative, whereas this sharpness is satisfactory to Richard, giving him a temporary escape. Richard enjoys the sharp, “frightening” feeling that reading gives him, as opposed to the bitterness that he feels during his sharp periods of hunger. Fright grabs Richard’s attention and allows him to escape from reality, while bitterness is a negative reaction to an event. Richard describes his excitement as “painful,” comparing emotions in order to display the depth of feeling Richard experiences while reading. Contrariwise, Richard’s desire to eat is described as an almost monotonous, constant pain. The term “vowing” exemplifies the sheer hunger and urge created by Richard’s experience reading. Reading, in

As Richard moves to Memphis and finds a home and source of food from Ms. Moss, he indulges in reading philosophical novels: “I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing” (249). The use of “revel” as opposed to other words places an emphasis on Richard’s obsession with reading, rather than mere enjoyment. He additionally lets his “crude imagination roam,” a raw, makeshift roaming symbolizing an obsession over reading whatever story Richard could get his hands on. In the past, as Richard worked to make money and provide for himself, he forgot about his creativity, thus “beaten out of me[him] by experience”. Now, hunger “surged up again”; now that Richard has a comfortable home and food source, even if he still works, he is able to plan to move up north and think about the future and he begins to read again. This ignites a parallel between the previous quote where Richard vows to read later on. Richard “hungered for books,” once again using “hungered” as a verb. A parallel between feeling, imagination and seeking books is additionally put in place. Wright brings up “new ways of looking and seeing,” alluding to the fact