Hunger in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

Hunger in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

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Hunger is a physical aspect of life. Generally, when you think of hunger you think of food. Hunger is a different thing in Richard Wright’s Black Boy. In this autobiography, Richard tells of his life from a young boy in the prejudice south to an adult in the north.. In Black Boy, Richard’s expression of hunger goes beyond the physical sense. Hunger overflows into the mental sense, and gives Wright a hunger for knowledge, independence, and understanding.

Knowledge is something that most, if not all, people crave. Richard was one of them. His first hunger for knowledge was when he moved in with his grandmother. With his grandmother lived a schoolteacher called Ella. One morning he came upon Ella reading a book and he begged to her, “ ‘Ella,’ I begged, ‘please tell me what you are reading.’… ‘Your grandmother wouldn’t like it if I talked to you about novels,’ she told me.”(38). He then starts to seeking around to read Ella’s novels, knowing that his grandmother disapproved. He shows courage and defiance for the sake of knowledge. When Richard starts school Granny refuses to pay for his textbooks, thinking that they were “worldly”. Richard also went around his grandmother’s word, and got a job selling newspapers. “ “Now, at last, I could have my reading in the home, could hove it there with the approval of Granny. She had already given me permission to sell papers.” (128). He tried to sell the newspapers, but found out that they were of Ku Klux Klan origin and stopped. Although he didn’t make enough money, he still had the nerve to ask his Granny to let him.

Independence was won in American a long time ago. Still, Richard hungers for a different independence. Independence from authority was one of them. An example of this was with his Uncle Tom. “Now, Uncle Tom, what do you want with me?’ I asked him. “You need

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to be taught a lesson in how to live with people,’ he said. “If I do need one, your not going to give it to me,’ I said.”(159). Even though Uncle Tom is his elder, Richard refuses to put up with him. Another example of this independence from authority was with his Aunt Addie.