The Madness of Starvation in Hamsun’s Hunger

Abstract

Published in 1890, Hunger is probably Hamsun’s best known and, arguably, his best-written novel. Largely autobiographical, it deals with the time Hamsun existed in Kristiania Oslo and is extraordinary both in terms of its psychological depth and poetic temperament. But one cannot easily dismiss the effect starvation had on Hamsun and to that extent one cannot discount intentionality. The course of the novel follows the nameless protagonist as he wanders virtually throughout the city while dwelling on the notions of life, death, homelessness, hunger, and art all within the confines of the city’s ethos and how their raison d’être is a kind of survival, contingent on mobility and as hunger sets in so too does a kind of madness.