Hunger serves as a motif that underscores Wright’s quest for knowledge and the ability to sustain himself psychologically and physically in the struggle against racism. Literal hunger is a constant presence throughout Wright’s life as a result of poverty and the spartan Seventh Day Adventist regime in his grandmother’s house. Wright’s hunger in this instance shows how his mother’s lack of emotional and financial resources starved the boy of what he needed for a wholesome childhood. His hunger in his grandmother’s house shows that her rigidity and religious beliefs were impediments to the healthy maturation of her grandson.

Wright’s other hungers are figurative—a hunger for literature, a hunger for experience, and a hunger for freedom. As a child encountering fairytales for the first time, Wright is eager to learn more words and to learn to read, forcing him to ask questions of adults who are too tired or too impatient to deal with his precocious personality. Once Wright learns to read, he hungers to participate in the world of words and literature by becoming a writer.

As Wright grows up and is forced to greater contact with white people, he learns that racial segregation places limits on his freedom of movement and thought, a situation that makes him long for space and time to explore himself and his environs more fully.