31 pages • 1 hour read

Hunger

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2017

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

Hunger

Roxane Gay’s memoir is titled Hunger not only as a reference to her eating habits, but her deep yearning for acceptance, love, and healing from the trauma of rape. In her own words:

This is a book about my body, about my hunger, and ultimately, this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much to be seen and understood. This is a book about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood (5).

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In Part 2, Gay peruses a family album and describes the changes in her physical appearance and presentation, noting that her younger self (pictured after her rape) looks “hollow” (37). After the assault, she spent the next decades of her life trying to fill this hollow space. She sought comfort in food—but it only served as a temporary distraction. As the years passed, Gay found herself more isolated, first at Exeter and then at Yale. She continued to eat and actively sought community, which she partially found via the Internet. She even left Yale and her family for a year to find fulfillment in a different state. Yet, life in Arizona also left her feeling isolated and used by others.

While Gay’s body once “protected” her, she now describes it as a cage that often keeps her from what she wants. She still hungers for acceptance from her family, healthy platonic and romantic relationships, and the ability to be vulnerable and navigate a world more accommodating to people like her. Though this hunger is not entirely satiated by the end of the memoir, Gay has begun to fill the hollow space with small steps and her writing: “Here I am, finally freeing myself to be vulnerable, and terribly human. Here I am, reveling in that freedom. Here. See what I hunger for and what my truth has allowed me to create” (304).

Trauma and Healing

Gay’s memoir captures how healing from trauma, like that of sexual violence, is not a linear process. Furthermore, victims’ responses to their trauma manifest in various ways—with Gay’s first response to the trauma of rape being to retreat into herself, out of both fear and shame. She soon realized that food could serve two purposes: Firstly, food was a tool she could use to make her body bigger, and thus a better form of protection from men. Secondly, food served as a momentary escape from the negative feelings that plagued her.

Yet, Gay’s eating also became a cage. As she changed her body, she suffered new traumas including derision and increased loneliness. Her family was unaware of the assault and thus did not understand her eating and weight gain. They became focused on trying to “fix” her, despite her weight gain not being what truly required care. When Gay entered therapy during high school, she began to understand what happened to her; while at Yale, she found some healing and community through chat rooms. But as the years passed, Gay’s self-esteem plummeted: She pushed her family away, left college, and pursued a new life in Arizona where so-called friends and romantic partners often mistreated her. Gay’s trauma shaped her relationships well into her twenties, leaving her feeling unworthy of respect.

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Once Gay entered Michigan Technical University’s PhD program to refine her writing, she made additional progress toward healing—particularly when she found acceptance in one of her first healthy romantic relationships. But when this relationship ended, her negative thoughts about herself increased.

Gay explains that she has gained and lost weight throughout her life. She acknowledges her hypocrisy as someone who wants to be accepted as she is and wants to lose weight to feel better in her own body. From the start, Gay informs readers that there will be no triumphant weight loss at the end of her book. Yet it does end on a happy note—a therapeutic one:

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I no longer need the body fortress I built. I need to tear down some of the walls, and I need to tear down those walls for me and me alone, no matter what good may come of that demolition. I think of it as undestroying myself (303).

Paradox

Throughout Hunger, Gay addresses the paradox of wanting to change her body and relationship with food while also wanting stigmas surrounding fat bodies to change. She wants acceptance as she is, but is not comfortable in her current body. As the product of a fatphobic society, she has internalized negative thoughts about fatness. Gay also addresses the physical limitations that come with her body. She wishes that physical spaces were more accommodating but also wants to transform her body herself so she can enjoy activities like hiking and trying on a variety of clothes.

But even in the face of doubt, Gay is defiant. She challenges the stereotypes that society perpetuates about fat bodies—that people of size must be lazy, that they eat nothing but junk food, or that any health issues they experience stem from weight. Gay critiques those who are brazen enough to remove food from her shopping cart or dole out patronizing praise at the gym. She confronts America’s obsession with solving the “obesity epidemic,” while also highlighting medical professionals’ unwillingness to accommodate bodies of size in their offices. Gowns do not fit her and scales are not made for bodies classified as “obese.” She similarly confronts the fat acceptance movement—which she deems necessary—but also addresses the reality that accepting oneself is not easy. Struggling with acceptance is part of the movement, as painful as it is. In this way, Gay challenges both fatphobic society and what she sees as a missing component of social movements that challenge bigotry.

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Paradox also characterizes Gay’s relationship with her immediate family—including her parents and two brothers. Her family is loving and she is close to them, but she also kept them at a distance when dealing with the trauma of rape. In fact, when she was 19, she disappeared for a year, with her parents having no idea where she was. They eventually found her through a private investigator and welcomed her home. On Gay’s end, she finds it difficult to belong to a family she considers beautiful. She feels like the odd one out because of her weight, and her family members—especially her parents—have tried to coerce her into weight loss since she was a teenager. When Gay’s family finally learned about her rape, they made an effort to be more understanding, but no family (or any type of relationship for that matter) can know each other perfectly.