Summary Of Hunger By Richard Wright

Wright grew up as an African American male in the south where he struggled through many problems. These issues that he faced persisted through his whole life and never seemed to improve even after moving up north hoping to build a better life. Wright fought through racism, poverty, abuse, and malnutrition. Some situations were worse than others, the worst being the hunger. The hunger made everything else worse not only for him, but also the rest of his family. Wright could not enjoy positive experiences completely while his stomach was empty, and his bad experiences were made even worse by the emotions created by the hunger.
At the beginning of the text, Wright complains and screams about being hungry after his father left. Johnson, an American
Wright admits his situation, “Hunger has always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at me gauntly” (14). Wright adds a certain tone into the text to show his emotions towards the hunger he is feeling. It is almost as though he explains hunger as a stranger that watches him sleep and never seems to leave him while he is awake. Without going through hunger, it is difficult to understand the daily struggle that some people have to go through. Wright not only shows the emotions that people feel, but he also gives hope to people that they will not always be starving, although it might seem like they will. Hunger is not a feeling that anyone should have forever and they should always being trying to be able to afford food, as food is the energy for everything else in
Wright points out that, “And at mealtime Aunt Maggie’s table was so loaded with food that I could scarcely believe it was real. It took me some time to get used to the idea of there being enough to eat” (Wright 50). He snuck food from the table and saved it in case one day he woke up and there was no food laid out for him to eat. The worst thing that a child can feel is excitement when there is enough food to eat and doubtfulness about how long this satisfied feeling of being full will last before they are forced to get the hunger back. No child should have to worry about these things, but unfortunately, many do. There are children which are scared to walk around because they do not want to waste the energy they have from the little food that they feel they were lucky to get.
In addition, Wright would not accept food from others even if he was in pain from the hunger. Richard Wright admitted how he felt when eating food that was not his, “When the neighbors offered me food, I refused, already ashamed that so often in my life I had to be fed by strangers” (Wright 86). Wright explained how if the person persisted, he would only eat a small amount and then explain that he was already full. Wright struggled through many things