Black Boy
...s, hunger that kept me on 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” (119). The type of hunger that Wright describes is worse than one who has not experienced chronic hunger can even imagine. These graphic descriptions allow the reader to almost physically feel Wright’s pain. Although Wright finds the physical hunger distressing, he eventually concludes that society needs unity and individuals need comprehension of and connection with one another. These feelings give way to the emotional hunger that also dominates much of his life. It is this hunger that acts as a literary vessel, drawing the reader deeper into Wright’s struggles. Throughout his life Wright constantly feels the desire for attention from people. However, since he does not receive much of this at home, he does not really know how to associate with others. This provokes a problem when he leaves home because he cannot easily relate to those around him. Upon enrolling in Sunday school, Wright explains how he “longed to be among them, yet when with them [he] looked at them as if he were a million miles away. [He] had been kept out of their world too long ever to become a real part of it” (178). This causes Wright to try to fit in and become someone he is not. He becomes lonely in the church because even when he tries to pray he never feels anything. The reader relates to Wright’s natural human desire to fit in, fully able to understand his struggle to find himself. Another thing that contributes to Wright's emotional hunger is the subject of blacks and whites. Even as a young child he continually questions life and tries to learn new things. As he grows older he cannot understand why blacks are content to remain uneducated and compliant with the way society is organized. He explains how he “wanted to understand these two sets of people who lived side by side and never touched, it seemed, except in violence” (54). He viewed this culture of justifiable torment as senseless, but dared not go against it. Wright accepted this segregation, but never let the whites go too far in the way they treated him. Wright desired to be able to speak his mind and not be tormented by the whites. These hardships lead to an emotional state of loneliness and overwhelming grief that evoke strong feelings from the reader. Although all these hungers are very significant, the hunger for education is the one that Richard has the hardest time enduring. Richard is a very bright boy, yet nobody encourages him to learn because Negro children of the Jim Crow South just did not grow up to be successful. In fact, many blacks settled for ignorance and illiteracy. However, Richard takes full advantage of the few opportunities he does encounter to learn and read. “I hungered for the sharp, frightening, breathtaking, almost painful excitement that the story had given me, and I vowed that as soon as I was old enough I would buy all the novels there were and read them to feed that thirst...