Hungry for Attention

In Black Boy, Richard Wright seems like he is always hungry. He is hungry for attention and hungry for food. In the first chapter he sets his house on fire saying he did it to see how it would look like. Killed a kitten to get back at his dad. Becoming a drunkard because he went into a saloon and because he got money he did what ever the people told him to do. And he runs away from the orphanage because he is scared of the people there. I think that these are actually excuses. The excuses might be true but a bigger part might be he actually wants attention so he does those things to get people to notice him. He was always hungry because they were very poor and he always blamed his dad for leaving them and for them being always hungry. He associated his dad with hunger.  He is not alone in his cravings. A lot of people like to get attention because of many reasons, they might be ignored and feel that nobody notices them and feel the need to do things to get people's attention for them. For Richard this is natural because he doesn't get much attention from his parents so he would do things to get attention.