All 5 Uses of

obscure

in

Native Son

It was as though he had an obscure but deep debt to fulfill to himself.
Book 2 *

obscure = not clearly understood

Having been thrown by an accidental murder into a position where he had sensed a possible order and meaning in his relations with the people about him; having accepted the moral guilt and responsibility for that murder because it had made him feel free for the first time in his life; having felt in his heart some obscure need to be at home with people and having demanded ransom money to enable him to do it--having done all this and failed, he chose not to struggle any more.
Book 3

obscure = not clearly seen, understood, or expressed

With a supreme act of will springing from the essence of his being, he turned away from his life and the long train of disastrous consequences that had flowed from it and looked wistfully upon the dark face of ancient waters upon which some spirit had breathed and created him, the dark face of the waters from which he had been first made in the image of a man with a man's obscure need and urge; feeling that he wanted to sink back into those waters and rest eternally.
Book 3

With this new sense of the value of himself gained from Max's talk, a sense fleeting and obscure, he tried to feel that if Max had been able to see the man in him beneath those wild and cruel acts of his, acts of fear and hate and murder and flight and despair, then he too would hate, if he were they, just as now he was hating them and they were hating him.
Book 3

And with but a few minutes between him and the beginning of judgment, the obscure longing to possess the thing which Max had dimly evoked in him was still a motive.
Book 3

Definition:

(obscure as in: the view or directions are obscure)
not clearly seen, understood, or expressed

editor's notes: Although this meaning of obscure typically refers to seeing or understanding, it can refer to difficulty with any type of detection as when something is hard to hear. It can also more specifically mean vague, or mysterious, or unknown by anyone. Much more rarely, it can mean secretive.