Richard Wright’s Hunger: Analysis of Black Boy Essay

In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard is struggling to survive in a racist environment in the South. In his youth, Richard is vaguely aware of the differences between blacks and whites. He scarcely notices if a person is black or white, and views all people equally. As Richard grows older, he becomes more and more aware of how whites treat blacks, the social differences between the races, and how he is expected to act when in the presence of white people. Richard, with a rebellious nature, finds that he is torn between his need to be treated respectfully, with dignity and as an individual with value and his need to conform to the white rules of society for survival and acceptance.

   In the troubled world in which we live in, it is almost impossible not to find someone who is experiencing hunger in any one of its forms. Whether it is for food, for knowledge, or for love, hunger is everywhere and it mercilessly attacks anyone, young or old, black or white. In Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, Wright suffers hunger for love, hunger for knowledge, and hunger for what he believes is right.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

A slave is viewed as nothing, and that made it easy for people to view them as personal property. As a victim of domestic servitude and forced labor, it only entails that his life will inevitably spiral down into self depression and dismay. Johnson’s assertion regards that the limitations in Douglass’s life would only produce destructive consequences should he disobey or refute his permanent title of a slave. As the child of a system that stips down all self idenitity, it was hard for Douglass to identify himself as anything else but a slave. Life is all about self identification, and when relating Wright to it, Wright could identify himself as a free black man. If Douglass could portray himself as anything else but a negro slave, maybe he could define his life as somewhat purposeful, but his life had no purpose and that made it a worse life to

Starvation within the White Walls, 1 “(The hunger for love, belonging, and hope is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread)(Mother Teresa)”. Richard Wright, a young black boy fighting racial prejudice within the South, longs for love, hope, and freedom. The bars of the South’s unjust culture imprisons Richard’s weakening body; for hunger, a physical and mental void, overcomes his remaining essence. Hunger consumes Richard’s embodiment, as his former ravenous self depletes into a shell of the past. Within the classic novel Black Boy, hunger comes to symbolize the absence of love, innocence, and hope within young Richard’s life.

Hunger is a unique feeling because its meaning is limitless. Although the term “hunger” is typically associated with a lack of food, it can be simply defined as having “a strong desire or craving” (“hunger”). In the novel, Black Boy, Richard Wright recalls the constant hunger pains due to living in poverty. However, Richard experienced alternative forms of hunger that pushed him to overcome adversity. Richard Wright’s success as a writer, even changed the way people looked at African Americans during the twentieth century. Without Richard’s lingering hunger, he might have succumbed to the racist regime of the South rather than controlling his own destiny. The physical hunger that Richard Wright experienced served as a reminder of his persistent hunger for knowledge, understanding, and love which ultimately lead to his growth as a person.

A autobiography called Black Boy, by Richard Wright was written seventy-five years ago. In his autobiography, he tackled some of the issues that are currently still happening in the United States. As a child, when Wright went to school and worked at different jobs, he’d seen a much of the racial discrimination, violence and unemployment along with other forms of racial inequality. Although racial discrimination, stereotyping and unemployment have decreased in the United States, it is still an active problem that people of color face. If Wright was alive in 2018, writing a novel about a black boy in United States, he would write about the racial discrimination, stereotyping and unemployment the black boy would have to go through.

Richard Wright wrote a book titled “Black Boy”. This book was an autobiography. In this excerpt from his book, it shows a detailed passage about Wright’s difficult childhood. Wright suffered from three different types of hunger: physical hunger, Emotional hunger, and mental hunger. Ever since his dad left him, his brother, and his mother, he has suffered from physical hunger.

Wright tries to convey this scene that Richard is curios/ wants to learn more, unlike other black kids around him he is dedicated to learn new things, and perceive things in a different point of view. However, his granny objectifies and beaten Richard because of what he said towards her, Richard told his granny that he learned those words from the books that he read. She tells him that it is the devil’s work but Richard disagree and continued to read anyways regardless as to what she says

Wright provides a specific example of injustice, and thus protests this subjugation that he was forced to endure by exposing its inequality and injustice. Wright’s presentation of this experience shows that the oppression of students must end, therefore, Black Boy is a protest against the injustices against

Hunger is a unique feeling because its meaning is limitless. Although the term “hunger” is typically associated with a lack of food, it can be simply defined as having “a strong desire or craving” (“hunger”). In the novel, Black Boy, Richard Wright recalls the constant hunger pains due to living in poverty. However, Richard experienced alternative forms of hunger that pushed him to overcome adversity. Richard Wright’s success as a writer even changed the way people looked at African Americans during the twentieth century.

One of the most prominent conflicts that Wright encounters throughout his life is hunger. The hunger Wright faces is an emotional hunger, one that cannot be quenched by a meager loaf of bread or cup of water. Instead of sustenance, he pines for knowledge, ideas and associations that will satisfy him mentally. One of the obstacles between Wright and this knowledge he desires is his poverty. The poverty Wright faces leads him to be unable to attend formal schooling and thus, he cannot obtain any form of education that would have been able to help him quench his insatiable appetite for knowledge. He, however, chooses to acquire this knowledge through means of literature. By making this choice he is able to overcome the insurmountable obstacle,

In Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard subconsciously wants to move as far from his family as possible. For example, when his life takes a very fortunate turn, Richard encounters Mrs. Moss. When Richard first meets Mrs. Moss, he says, “I had met the warmest, friendliest person I had ever known, that I discovered that all human beings were not…like the members of my family” (Wright 210). Richard means that his family often disgusts him, and new people he meets are a welcome change.

During the twenties, African American individuals living in the Jim Crow South found it extremely difficult to create a stable and successful future for themselves due to the fact that discrimination was heavily practiced. In the autobiography Black boy, written by Richard Wright, Wright experiences physical and intellectual hunger for the majority of his life. As a young boy, Wright's father deserts his family, leaving his mother unable to provide for Wright and his brother. Wright goes on to live in and out of different homes, exposing him to the vast differences in white and black people and the lifestyles they indulge in. Wright goes on to experience extreme hunger, both physical and intellectual hunger.

Richard Wright’s Black Boy, some seventy-five years after its underlying production, still holds as one of the most far reaching and grasping takes on bigotry in the American artistic custom. Wright isn't fulfilled to just depict American bigotry as a deceptive method for survey of the world, or as a point of view held by various derisive people; rather, Wright underlines the way that the center of race and prejudice is in the very structure holding the system together. As such, Wright trusts that it would be, for all intents and purposes, difficult to describe American culture without prejudice. So, in spite of the fact that the specific occasions in which Wright is hurt by bigotry may have been executed by a limited number of people, Black Boy makes it obvious that these people are only after a considerably more extensive and more unpleasant example. Generally speaking, the mark of subjection and its related belief systems has created a perpetual underclass. The way of life, in which Wright grows up, purposely aims to hinder his abilities out of dread for what they may bring.