Through the end of “Southern Night” the most significant central idea in the development of Richard Wright’s autobiography is hunger. Richard faces hunger his whole life, he has a hunger for acceptance, and knowledge.
Richard starts to struggle with hunger in his family once his father leaves. When Mr.
Wright leaves Richard and the family, his mother wasn’t able to provide him with a sufficient amount of food. This leads to them moving in with Granny and Aunt Addie, where Richard was never able to feel acceptance. This is shown when Richard begins to have issues with Aunt
Addie. Their various arguments led to Aunt Addie ignoring Richard, making him turn away from her and the family and having less respect for them. Richard was made to feel like he wasn’t
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Richard also had trouble being accepted with his classmates. He could never fit in with them because of the way he is. He begins to wonder why he can never do anything right so that the others could let him in the group. This affects Richard because he starts to doubt everything he does, and he wonders if anything he does will backfire on him. Even though Richard has experienced a lack of acceptance at home, he still continues to hunger for a better life where he will be accepted. The many different hungers that Richard has all fuel his hunger for knowledge. He seeks to understand why he can’t be enough for people and why he has to put in extra effort to make people like him. After being able to escape from Jackson,
Richard began to read anything he could get his hands on. Richard meets a man called, Mr. Falk who lends him his library card which let Richard be able to read novels that he couldn’t before, satisfying his hunger. The books that Richard reads gives him new ideas and inspires him. The mores Richard reads, the more he feels the need to obtain even more knowledge, never