Knut Hamsun's fin de siècle novel, La Faim, prepares the reader for a journey with its first sentence where Hamsun writes: "Christiania, singular city, of which no man never leaves without taking a trace. of his stay there. (Hunger 1). Here, Hamsun lays the groundwork for the introspective journey of the novel's protagonist, an anonymous narrator who attempts to become a writer in the town of Christiania. As the protagonist travels through the town, the reader recounts his exposure to great hunger and poverty, his attempt to find employment, and his interactions with other characters in his town. Throughout the novel, Hamsun uses these experiences as a means of highlighting the narrator's psyche in an attempt to demonstrate the importance of art through the vision of the unconscious. In this article, I will discuss the methods Hamsun uses to describe the unconscious through the experiences of his narrator. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Hamsun writes the protagonist as an unreliable and conflicted narrator who displays a propensity to act alone on impulse. This is seen in the first part when, while he goes to meet the firefighters in the hope of getting a job, he tries to make his pants look new again by dousing them with water. “Once again I got up from the window, went to the sink and splashed water on the shiny knees of my pants to dull them a little and make them look a little new” (3 ). This passage provides insight into the narrator's lack of credibility; by lying about his appearance, he is seen as acting impulsively and is shown to be unreliable. Hunger is an introspective novel that contains little dialogue, the reader is forced to rely on the narrator and by making him unreliable, Hamsun shows the narrator's likelihood of lying and acting completely on impulse. The narrator's penchant for acting on impulse is visible throughout. the novel and is an important element used to show the unconscious thoughts of the narrator. This is seen when after accidentally brushing a woman's arm while walking around town, the narrator begins following and teasing her. “Suddenly, my thoughts, as if inspired in a fanciful way, take a singular direction. I feel seized by a strange desire to scare this lady; to follow her and annoy her in one way or another” (7). His description of his thoughts as fanciful and the typed word serve to show his quickness to act on impulse. Hamsun uses the same interaction with the woman as a window into the narrator's unconscious. When the woman meets him, he says to her: “You’re losing your book, ma’am! (p7), it is revealed two paragraphs later that they have come across a bookstore and the narrator is standing in front of it. He unconsciously locked himself in the bookstore and used a book as a teasing instrument. The lack of pity the reader feels for the narrator is a result of Hamsun's depiction of the narrator's unconscious. Except for a few isolated instances, the narrator remains hungry throughout the novel. Seeing this experience through the narrator's mind and thoughts, the reader becomes aware that his hunger is self-inflicted and does not feel sorry for him. In the fourth part, after obtaining a room in an inn in Vaterland, he speaks of the kindness of his happiness at not being hungry, saying: “I no longer used cloth around my hands when I wrote; and I could look out at the street from my widow on the second floor without feeling dizzy. It was much better in every way, and I was beginning to be surprised that I didn't. 2003