Many young people growing up today in modern America live in a pseudo-realistic existence. They are sheltered from arrays of devices which may hinder upon comfortable expectancies and dull the long term effects of hardship. The inference of "hunger" is evident even in our pampered context, however it holds a much more significant meaning in lives touched by the grim finger of poverty, defeat, and in this case - racial discrimination. For instance, the hunger which manifests in the life of Richard Wright can hardly be deemed routine, but rather slaughtering when compared to the hunger we may think we feel in our day to day lives. In Black Boy, hunger is broken down into three fundamental parts - all of which attack the author either separately, or in brutal symbiosis. The ugly faces of unquenched hanker translate as physical, emotional, and educational hunger. Like a three-headed sea serpent terrorizing a devastated coastal village, Richard's three headed hunger continuously bludgeoned his own brio while chipping away at his shores to near erosion. .
First, the essence of physical hunger beats down upon Mr. Wright's being from a very early age. As noted on page 16, "Hunger stole upon me slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant. Hunger had 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." We as readers can even relate to this. Yes, the occasional growling in our stomachs may remind us that mealtime is drawing near, but even on our hungriest of days, our unrelinquished appetite in no way compares to that of Richard's emptiness. When Richard's father left the house for the last time, he left the door open for poverty and despair to root in the Wright home uninvited. Along with these two, physical starvation tagged along as an expected escort. As noted on page 119, "Once again I knew hunger, biting hunger, hunger that made my body aimlessly restless, hunger that kept me on the edge, that made my temper flare, hunger that made hate leap out of my heart like the dart of a serpent's tongue, hunger that created in me odd cravings.
