Hunger

As a young child, Wright’s life is bereft of true joy. He achieves superficial, brief happiness by drinking and engaging in nefarious activities. However, when the soap letters are wiped from the windows, when his drunkenness wears away into sobriety, he is left hungry and empty. Wright is hungry because his life is empty, both literally and figuratively. Sustained on bread and tea, Wright is constantly seeking a morsel of something, but nothing is to be found, and so he sleeps and lives with an empty stomach. Figuratively, Wright has no father and no real home. He is given no love from his father and is shown only snippets of kindness from his mother, who is tired from failure. His first home dies in a fire, and the flat in Memphis is scarred with unhappiness. The orphan home serves as a shelter, not as a place of security. Wright’s life has no path and no potential purpose. His hungriness represents emptiness of the body and of the soul.