Knut Hamsun’s 1890 novel Hunger is a stunning exploration into the human psyche on the brink of collapse. With detailed description and introspection, Hamsun has crafted a highly complex and powerful narrative that takes readers on an inner journey with its protagonist and narrator, a young writer in Oslo.
The novel opens at the end of the protagonist’s money. He has spent the last of his coins on a cup of coffee and a piece of bread. In the novel’s opening line, he describes himself as “starving for the wants of a higher life.” This quote lays bare a key theme of the novel. The protagonist has a desperate hunger for something beyond the mundane, everyday reality he faces.
The protagonist’s increasingly frantic search for money to pay his rent leads him to a number of disconcerting experiences. When he is turned away from places where he thought he could find work, or asked for tasks deemed impossible, it leads to a sense of shame and humiliation. His situation causes him to question his own self-worth and his ability to take part in the ways of the world. As he wanders through the streets of Oslo and the area beyond, he grapples with the alienation society creates in the individual actor and comes to despise the insurmountable structures of poverty.
However, in this desperate situation, the protagonist never wavers in his attempts to reach a truer self. He seeks out solitary moments, withdrawing in order to process through his pain. One particular scene has him turning to the river, “to be free of filth.” As the protagonist wrestles with uncertainty, hunger, and helplessness, he also turns inward to grapple with truths of his own mind and identity, to discover a sense of self worth that exists independent of society’s values.
By the end of the novel, the protagonist does not necessarily find success. He does not suddenly have money, or job stability, or any resolution to the problems he faces; rather, he finds freedom from a certain kind of hunger. Through the character’s journey, what Hamsun has achieved is a nuanced exploration of a man's struggle to redefine his own worth, to fly in the face of societal expectations and find a kind of sustenance from within himself. Hunger is an invigorating dive into the depths of a man’s mind and is remarkable in its psychological insight and beauty.
