Hunger in Black Boy Essay

In Richard Wrights autobiography, Black Boy, Richards persistent hunger is the driving force in his struggle through childhood and adolescence. Like many blacks in the Jim Crow South, Richard is often hungry for food; however, what separates Richard from other Southern blacks is that he also hungers for freedom, literature, and identity.

Wherever Richard goes, problems follow, but his strength is that he is always hungry for more in life and never gives up.

Richards hunger for freedom is difficult to satisfy because of the racial barriers in the Southern society in which he grows up. When Richards father leaves the family, Richard and his brother are sent to live in an orphanage while Richards mother looks for a job. The orphanage is poorly run, and Richard is always hungry there and feels trapped. One day, he runs away. When night comes, Richard gets scared and says to himself, Ought I go back? No; hunger [is] back there, and fear.(31) The police find Richard and take him back, but soon afterwards his mother takes Richard and his brother to her sisters house. Living with his aunt does not work out, and after many years of living in many different households, Richard finds a job as a ticket collector at a movie theater. Richard is determined to escape the South, so, although it is risky and does not feel right, he takes part in money-making scams and steals to make enough money to flee. As he sees it, it is freedom or the chain-gang.(205) He goes to Memphis and stays with a woman who immediately wants him to marry her daughter, but Richard refuses because he cannot relate to their peasant mentality and does not want to be confined to such a simple life.(214)

Richard hungers for literature because it lets him see the world beyond his own surroundings and becomes the only way he can express himself. Even at a young age, Richard begs Ella, a tenant in his grandmas house, to [t]ell [him] what [she] is reading, despite his grandmother forbidding it.(38) Richard later gets a job as a paper boy and always reads the pulp fiction supplement that comes with it; although the stories are somewhat trashy, Richard devours them because he [did not have] any taste in reading and [a]nything that interested [him] satisfied [him].(128) His hunger for self-expression through literature leads him to write. He is proud of himself when he writes his first story, and when he shows it to his neighbor, her inability to grasp what [he has] done somehow gratif[ies] [him].(121) He felt satisfaction in distinguishing himself through his writing.

Richards hunger for identity puts him into conflict with almost everyone he meets because he refuses to conform to what is expected of him as a Negro. Despite being scorned by his grandmother and aunt, Richard will not become a Christian like all of his black friends and family because he sees religion as the attempt of one individual or group to rule another in the name of God.(136) (He is eventually baptized at the request of his dying mother, but he never believes.) Also, when Richards uncle tries to beat Richard for no good reason, Richard fends him off with razor blades. His uncle says, Somebody will yet break your spirit, to which Richard replies, It wont be you!, which shows how Richard refuses to submit to unjust punishments, as is expected of Southern blacks.(160) One time, Richard gets a job working at a white familys house. When he tells his employer that he wants to be writer, she mocks him. Richard quits immediately because he feels that she assaulted [his] ego [and] assumed that she knew [his] place in life.(147) Throughout the story, Richard often suffers from physical hunger. However, the strongest hunger he feels is to be himself and not submit to what others expect of him.

In Richard Wrights Black Boy, Richard is motivated by his hunger for freedom from the constraints of a society plagued by racial stereotypes and discrimination.