Summary Of Knut Hamsun's Hunger

Darkness, a void that entraps a soul, a shadow that devours the light, and a looming force that plagues the mind. Like clouds that move in the sky, the darkness lurks slowly until it’s overcast is complete. Once entrapped, no one is safe from this darkness. Anger, sadness, and desperation are all just a mere trail of the aftermath that is yet to begin. The true form of this “darkness” resides within every individual as the loss of hope. In Knut Hamsun’s philosophical and psychological novel Hunger translated by Sverre Lyngstad, readers follow a wandering unnamed writer slowly progressing towards malnutrition-induced madness. Sadly, the writer’s inability to subdue his physical hunger leads to the continuation of his suffering, but it is …show more content…
The protagonist’s destitute body from his suffering is not a mean to an end, but a mean to a new beginning. In light of it all, the narrator’s true character is revealed when he describes his suffering, “But in the pit of hell the devils were raising their hackles in fury because it was taking me such a long time to commit a cardinal sin, an unforgivable sin which God in his righteousness had to cast me down” (Hamsun 45). The narrator’s comparison of his suffering to “the pit of hell” and “devils raising their hackles in fury”, defines the enormity of his circumstance. The protagonist describes his inability to fully repress the temptations to stray from his ideals when he denotes, “It was taking me such a long time to commit a cardinal sin”. He refuses to become a fallen angel like Satan. Unfortunately, as worse comes to worse, it is as if the narrator’s will is being chipped away piece by piece. Allowing the protagonist’s suffering to dictate his actions not only allows the darkness to become a part of him, but also forces the narrator to compromise who he is as a person. It is as if Satan himself is in awe, while awaiting the protagonist’s demise, that in such testing trials the protagonist has such a mindset. The unnamed writer’s audacity to act the way he does exemplifies his will to continue while inhibiting himself from …show more content…
The protagonist acknowledges that he is becoming psychotic. Talking to himself in a bookstore the narrator remarks, “Then I won’t go another step with you, now you know. Look, you are solely troubled, fighting an awesome battle with the powers of darkness and with big silent monsters at night, and your hunger and thirst for wine and milk and receive them not” (Hamsun 82). The narrator’s incapacity to separate thoughts from reality creates his lack of a filter between his consciousness and subconscious self; therefore, creating a constant stream of consciousness. In his mental disjunction, “I won’t go another step with you” expresses his plea to his subconscious self to not allow the darkness to prevail. The narrator realizes losing his subconscious self to the darkness will ultimately result in the narrator completely losing himself. The protagonist’s consciousness tries to shake his subconscious self free from the darkness by explaining that his conscious is “fighting an awesome battle with the powers of darkness and big silent monsters at night.” Unfortunately, the protagonist realizes this darkness is greater than his own hope and acknowledges “[his] hunger and thirst for wine and milk receive them not.” The narrator’s lucid conscious is left watching the actions of his subconsciousness consumed by darkness as it takes over his body