How Does Richard Wright Present Hunger

Hunger was always in his life, but as the days drug on, it developed a new depth. It never left his side; it twisted his guts and gnawed at him every minute he was awake. In Richard Wright's novel Black Boy, Richard suffers from physical, emotional, and mental hunger. For Richard, the lack of food was not the only thing that affected his physical state of being. Richard longed for food, for the longer he went without it, it was slowly eating away his muscles; he desired to see the day when his hunger would end. Though his mother wanted to provide him with food, she was not able to due to how difficult it was to find a job. After she established a career, the mother taught Richard Wright a valuable lesson in learning to fight for himself by sending him to purchase groceries. He fought back and won,
consequently, showing the abundance of Wright’s physical strength. The gangs on the harsh streets in Memphis not only physically abused him, but they mentally abused him by striking fear into his heart at the thought of what might happen after he left his home. Wright went through a great deal of emotions during this period of starvation and malnutrition. These emotions came from many people: his father, his mother, and the terrifying gangs that lurked on the streets. Richard Wright became angry with his father for deserting his family; he later focuses this bitterness and hatred onto the feeling of his hunger. While his mother, on the other hand, struck a sense of maturity and fright into his heart after forcing him out of the house to retrieve the groceries. Meanwhile, the gangs showed him terror, for he knew not if he would come home if he were to cross paths with them. Though, Wright not only had the sense of physical hunger nipping at him, he had the constant mental hunger prodding through his mind. Richard Wright desired to be both physically and mentally satisfied.
Though his mother wanted to meet both of these needs, unfortunately, she could only truly fulfill one of them, and this was his need for knowledge. It may not have been math or history, but in the desperate time, it was necessary for Wright to learn. His mother sent him three times to retrieve the groceries, and two of these times he lost his mother’s hard earned money. Though she knew the gangs were abusing her son and taking their money, she repeatedly sent him to the store to teach him to fight for himself, consequently, knowing it would pay off later in his life. His life was no fairy tale, for it had sadness, bitterness, anger, and most of all, hunger. Richard Wright was taught many things through his life. First, he was taught to fight for himself. Second, he learned to deal with his anger towards his father and his fear towards the grueling gangs. Lastly, he was taught by his mother, in a very little time, to grow up. Richard Wright had come face to face with many feelings, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never escape the beast that never went away,
hunger.