I can gain a deeper meaning of "Hunger" through rereading and analysis.
To do this I must be able to identify literary elements such as figurative language, characterization, and conflict.
I will demonstrate this by writing and discussing about the effect of literary elements on the message of the story.
Directions: ONLY FOCUS ON CHUNK 1 - Questions below text.
“Hunger”
- excerpt from Black Boy by Richard
Wright
Chunk 1
(Literary Devices)
Hunger stole upon me so 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.
The hunger I had known before this had been no grim, hostile stranger;
it had been a normal hunger that had made me beg constantly for bread, and when
I ate a crust or two I was satisfied.
But this new hunger baffled me, scared me, made me angry and
insistent. Whenever I begged for food
now, my mother would pour me a cup of tea, which would still the clamor in my
stomach for a moment or two; but a little later I would feel hunger nudging my
ribs, twisting my empty guts until they ached.
I would grow dizzy and my vision would dim. I became less active in my play, and for the
first time in my life I had to pause and think of what was happening to me.
Chunk 2 (Dialogue and Characterization)
“Mama,
I’m hungry,” I complained one afternoon.
“Jump up and catch a kungry,” she
said, trying to make me laugh and forget.
“What’s a kungry?”
“It’s what little boys eat when they
get hungry,” she said.
“What does it taste like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you tell me to catch
one?”
“Because you said that you were
hungry,” she said, smiling. I sensed
that she was teasing me and it made me angry.
“But I’m hungry. I want to eat.”
“You’ll have to wait.”
“But I want to eat now.”
“But there’s nothing to eat,” she
told me.
“Why?”
“Just because there’s none,” she
explained.
“But I want to eat,” I said,
beginning to cry.
“You’ll just have to wait,” she said
again.
“But why?”
“For God to send some food.”
“When is He going to send it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But I’m hungry!”
She was ironing and she paused and
looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“Where’s your father?” she asked
me.
I stared in bewilderment. Yes, it was true that my father had not come
home to sleep for many days now and I could make as much noise as I
wanted. Though I had not known why he
was absent, I had been glad that he was not there to shout his restrictions at
me. But it had never occurred to me that
his absence would mean that there would be no food.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Who brings food into the house?” my
mother asked me.
“Papa,” I said. “He always brought food.”
“Well your father isn’t here now,”
she said.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“But I’m hungry,” I whimpered,
stomping my feet.
“You’ll have to wait until I get a
job and buy food,” she said.
Chunk 3
(Conflict and Characterization)
As the days slid
past, the image of my father became associated with my pangs of hunger, and
whenever I felt hunger, I thought of him with a deep biological bitterness.
My mother finally went to work as a
cook and left me and my brother alone in the apartment each day with a loaf of
bread and a pot of tea. When she
returned at evening, she would be tired and dispirited and would cry a
lot. Sometimes, when she was in despair,
she would call us to her and talk to us for hours, telling us that we now had
no father, that our lives would be different from those of other children, that
we must learn as soon as possible to take care of ourselves, to dress ourselves,
to prepare our own food; that we must take upon ourselves the responsibility of
the flat while she worked. Half
frightened, we would promise solemnly.
We did not understand what had happened between our father and our
mother, and the most that these long talks did to us was to make us feel a
vague dread. Whenever we asked why
father had left, she would tell us that we were too young to know.
One evening my mother told me that
thereafter I would have to do the shopping for food. She took me to the corner store to show me
the way. I was proud; I felt like a
grown-up. The next afternoon I looped
the basket over my arm and went down the pavement toward the store. When I reached the corner, a gang of boys
grabbed me, knocked me down, snatched the basket, took the money, and sent me
running home in a panic. That evening I
told my mother what had happened, but she made no comment; she sat down at
once, wrote another note, gave me more money, and sent me out to the grocery
again. I crept down the steps and saw
the same gang of boys playing down the street.
I ran back into the house.
“What’s the matter?” my mother
asked.
“It’s those same boys,” I said. “They’ll beat me.”
“You’ve got to get over that,” she
said. “Now go on.”
“I’m scared,” I said.
“Go on and don’t pay any attention
to them,” she said.
I went out the door and walked
briskly down the sidewalk, praying that the gang would not molest me. But when I came upon them, someone shouted.
“There he is!”
They came toward me and I broke into
a wild run toward home. They overtook me
and flung me to the pavement. I yelled, pleaded, kicked, but they wrenched the
money out of my hand. They yanked me to
my feet, gave me a few slaps, and sent me home sobbing. My mother met me at the door.
“They b-beat m-me,” I gasped. “They t-t-took the m-money.”
I started up the steps, seeking the
shelter of the house.
“Don’t you come in here,” my mother
warned me.
I froze in my tracks and stared at
her.
“But they’re coming after me,” I
said.
“You just stay right where you are,”
she said in a deadly tone. “I’m going to
teach you this night to stand up and fight for yourself.”
She went into the house and I
waited, terrified, wondering what she talking about. Presently she returned with more money and
another note; she also had a long, heavy stick.
“Take this money, this note, and
this stick,” she said. “Go to the store
and buy those groceries. If those boys
bother you, then fight.”
I was baffled. My mother was telling me to fight, a thing
that she had never done before.
“But I’m scared,” I said.
“Don’t you come into this house
until you’ve gotten those groceries,” she said.
“They’ll beat me, they’ll beat me,”
I said.
“Then
stay in the streets; don’t come back here!”
I ran up the steps and tried to
force my way past her into the house. A
stinging slap came on my jaw. I stood on
the sidewalk, crying:
“Please, let me wait until
tomorrow,” I begged.
“No,” she said. “Go now!
If you come back into this house without those groceries, I’ll whip
you!”
Chunk 4
(Elements of Plot)
She slammed the door and I heard the key
turn in the lock. I shook with
fright. I was alone upon the dark,
hostile streets and gangs were after me.
I had the choice of being beaten at home or away from home. I clutched the stick, crying, trying to
reason. If I were beaten at home, there
was absolutely nothing I could do about it; but if I were beaten in the
streets, I had a chance to fight and defend myself. I walked slowly down the sidewalk, coming
closer to the gang of boys, holding the stick tightly. I was so full of fear that I could scarcely
breathe. I was almost upon them now.
“There he is again!” the cry went
up.
They surrounded me quickly and began
to grab for my hand.
Chunk 5
(Conclusion: Theme?)
“I’ll kill you!” I threatened.
They closed in. In blind fear I let the stick fly, feeling it
crack against the boy’s skull. I swung
again, smashing another skull, then another.
Realizing that they would retaliate if I let up for but a second, I
fought to lay them low, to knock them cold, to kill them so that they could not
strike back at me. I flayed with tears
in my eyes, teeth clenched, stark fear making me throw every ounce of my
strength behind each blow. I hit again
and again, dropping the money and the grocery list. The boys scattered, yelling, nursing their
heads, staring at me in utter disbelief.
They had never seen such frenzy.
I stood panting, egging them on, taunting them to come on and
fight. When they refused, I ran after
them and they tore out for their homes, screaming. The parents of the boys rushed into the
streets and threatened me, and for the first time in my life I shouted at
grown-ups, telling them that I would give them the same if they bothered
me. I finally found my grocery list and
the money and went to the store. On my
way back I kept my stick poised for instant use, but there was not a single boy
in sight. That night I won the right to
the streets of Memphis
HUNGER 1:
Answer the three following questions independently:
-
What is the major
literary device used by Richard Wright in this paragraph?
-
Draw a picture
that represents what you visualize in this paragraph.
-
Why does the
author use this literary device in this paragraph? What does it help us know about the conflict
and the narrator?
J Answer questions 1-5 in discussion form. Write the answer for 6 and 7 on a computer piece of paper.
1.
What is the
paragraph about?
2.
What are the
narrators’ feelings about hunger?
3.
How is the hunger
similar or different than your own hunger today?
4.
How is this
hunger different than his previous hungers?
5.
Why are the
adjectives “grim” and “hostile” used to describe hungry?
6.
Quote
7.
The author uses
________ to convey (the author’s message)
