The Hungry Heart: A Novel

"The Hungry Heart: A Novel" by David Graham Phillips is a story set in the early 1900s that looks at love, marriage and what people want out of life. The main people in the story, Richard Vaughan and Courtney Benedict, are trying to figure out how to balance what society expects of them with what they want for themselves. As Richard gets busy with his job, Courtney feels alone and starts to wonder if being a wife is all she wants, showing the strain between her dreams and what her marriage is. The story looks at how hard it can be to find yourself when the world around you has its own ideas about who you should be. It shows Courtney's fight to connect with Richard and struggling with family traditions and what everyone around her thinks she should do.