Hunger · Chapters
Chapters explained
Chapter companions for Hunger by Knut Hamsun.
Chapter 1
Prefatory Note
George Egerton introduces Knut Hamsun and his first novel 'Hunger', describing the controversial reception of his work, his unique stylistic innovations in Norwegian literature, and his psychological exploration of the human soul, particularly the abnormal and insane.
Chapter 2
Hunger
The narrator, a starving writer in Christiania, struggles with extreme poverty, hunger, and psychological deterioration as he wanders the city, pawns his waistcoat, and encounters various characters, including a lady in black and a policeman, before deciding to leave the city.
Chapter 3
I
The narrator describes his impoverished life in Christiania, waking in a cold attic, struggling with hunger and humiliation, and wandering the streets in a state of psychological distress and defiance against God.
Chapter 4
II
The narrator, starving and desperate, wanders through Christiania after spending his last shillings. He plays a cruel trick on a policeman with an empty paper cornet, contemplates suicide, attempts to pawn buttons and glasses, and encounters a sympathetic acquaintance who offers help.
Chapter 5
III
The narrator, after a violent emotional outburst, wanders through the city in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. He encounters a lame man at the wharf, asks for tobacco, and later returns home to find the lady in black waiting outside his door. He speaks with her, learns her name is Ylajali, and accompanies her partway home. He then reflects on his worsening hunger and poverty, considers stealing, and walks through the city at night, feeling humiliated and desperate.
Chapter 6
IV
The narrator struggles with mental and physical deterioration as winter sets in. He attempts to write an allegory about a fire but fails. His landlady asks him to check her account, but he cannot add up the figures, leading to a crisis of self-doubt. He observes a street quarrel and later, in a fit of rage, is confronted by his landlady and a commissionaire delivers an envelope.
Chapter 7
Endnotes
The endnotes provide translator and editor annotations clarifying cultural, historical, and textual details in the novel, including barber pricing, a steam cooking-kitchen, Norwegian nobility, a theatre and garden, a governor's dwelling, specific dates, and a disputed reference to Leeds.