Meaning & Analysis
The physical sensation of starvation is so powerful that it compels people or animals to overcome seemingly impassable physical barriers to obtain food.
Insights
Supremacy of survival
Biological imperative overrides all other considerations; when existence is threatened by starvation, no obstacle, rule, or boundary is strong enough to deter the drive for sustenance.
Collapse of social order
The 'stone walls' represent laws, property rights, and civilized norms. The proverb suggests that extreme deprivation dissolves the social contract, making crime and rebellion inevitable.
Ingenuity of desperation
Extreme need forces the mind to find solutions to impossible problems; the starving man finds a way where the satisfied man sees only a dead end.
The siege mentality
The imagery is rooted in medieval warfare. As Torriano (1666) notes, fortresses were often 'starv'd out' rather than stormed. The proverb works two ways: hunger forces the besieged to surrender (breaking the wall from within) or drives the attacking army to ferocious desperation (breaking it from without), as noted in Shakespeare's '1 Henry VI'.
Legal nihilism
This saying is a folk corollary to the maxim 'Necessity has no law.' It implies that justice and morality are luxuries of the well-fed; the 'stone walls' of ethical conduct crumble instantly when the stomach is empty.
Dekker’s gunpowder
Thomas Dekker (1600) amplifies the proverb by equating hunger with gunpowder, suggesting they both 'eat through stone walls.' This vivid literary expansion frames hunger not just as a weakness, but as a volatile, explosive force capable of leveling structures.
Primal pairing with Love
The cross-reference to 'Love will go through stone walls' (L532) reveals a psychological dualism. Folklore recognizes only two forces capable of impossible feats: Eros (love/reproduction) and Survival (hunger). Both strip away rationality and physical limitations.
Maslow’s basement
Psychologically, this proverb anticipates the hierarchy of needs. It asserts that 'higher' structures (security, esteem, aesthetic walls) cannot stand if the physiological foundation is missing.
Rhetorical Devices
Hyperbole
Attributing the physical strength to shatter masonry to a physiological sensation emphasizes the overwhelming, irresistible nature of the urge.
Reification
Hunger is treated not as a passive state of lacking, but as an active, tangible agent—a battering ram or soldier that can physically strike and penetrate defenses.
Violent Imagery
Verbs like 'breaks,' 'pierces,' and 'tear down' imbue the proverb with aggression, framing survival not as a passive search but as a violent conquest.
Metaphor
'Stone walls' serve as a universal symbol for the most durable and formidable obstacles, suggesting that if hunger can conquer stone, it can conquer anything.
Transcription
Quotations
Some saie, and I feele hungre perseth stone wall.
As the ould saynge is, honger Breketh stone walles.
Hunger breakes stone walles, necessitie hath no Law.
Hunger is made of gunpowder, or gunpowder of hunger, for they both eat through stone walls.
A murrain on all proverbs. They say hunger breaks through stone walls.
Hunger pierceth walls of stone.
(pierceth).
(pierceth).
Hunger breaketh stone walles.
Neede breaketh the stone wall.
He must have an excellent stomach, that can break these stone walls, to come to her.
Hunger may break stone walls, it ne'er hurts men.
Hunger breaks stone walls.
(pierceth).
(breaks through).
As the English say, Hunger will break through stout walls; as well in assaulting, as in yielding, for a Fortress is either storm'd out, or starv'd out.
Hunger will break through stone walls.
Hunger will break through hard Stone-Walls.
[As in 1670 Ray].
They said they were anhungry; sigh'd forth proverbs-That hunger broke stone walls.
Shakespeare Citations
And hunger will enforce them to be more eager. Of old I know them. Rather with their teeth The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.
Cross References
Annotations
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.