I have been silent about my story in a world where people assume they know the why of my body, or any fat body. And now, I am choosing to no longer be silent. I am tracing the story of my body from when I was a carefree young girl who could trust her body and who felt safe in her body, to the moment when that safety was destroyed, to the aftermath that continues even as I try to undo so much of what was done to me.
- Roxane Gay, Hunger
Empathy is lacking in this world, especially in online spaces. The internet has become one of the cruelest and most bigoted places. Anybody can hide behind a computer screen and create an anonymous social media account to harass others. Creators can put up a screen-grabbing thumbnail and garner views with offensive, and insensitive content.
Twitter is an excellent example of an online space where strangers can tweet you vile and insulting things in a couple hundred characters. On YouTube, users can leave paragraphs of rude and hurtful comments.
Roxane Gay is frequently harassed on twitter. People offer her unsolicited weight loss advice, insult her body, and send her condescending tweets. In Hunger, she chooses to speak up about her body, her insecurities, and her struggle with her identity.
Hunger is a raw and honest story which must have required infinite amounts of courage to even decide to write. Gay says that her life can easily be divided into a before and after of the day she was raped at 12 years old. She perceived her body as weak and unprotected, and believed that the more she ate and the larger she became, the safer she was. She struggles between feeling this protection and feeling devalued in a world of thin privilege.
Gay reminds us that this society values thinness and rewards it. She writes about her concern with grocery shopping under the public eye, getting bruised from armchairs on planes, and sitting on the edge of her chair and using as little weight as possible during a public interview. She writes about cooking disappointing ravioli from Blue Apron instructions. She writes about how muted she was in describing her hunger to her parents, and how she could not bring herself to show them how broken she felt inside.
Hunger is a gift to literature. In no way is Gay ever obligated to explain her past and the evolution of her body to the public, but she bravely shares her ongoing struggle with her body and navigating society as a fat woman.
