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A Comparison Of Digging And A Raisin In The Sun

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Merriam-Webster Dictionary denotes heritage as the tradition, achievements or beliefs that are part of the history of a group or nation (“Heritage”). Many would agree that America is the epitome of a hard working nation as everyone desires to obtain the American dream. The American dream is obtained by the fulfillment of one’s personal aspirations to become successful. Success can be measured by one’s desire to be emotionally, spiritually and financially satisfied. Whatever one’s mode is to obtain success, it can only be obtained by means of determination followed by hard work. The characters in Heaney’s “Digging” and Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, are similar because their work ethics are influenced by their heritage, yet their approaches …show more content…

Mama (Lena) would like to save a share of this money for a house and her daughter Beneatha’s college education. Meanwhile Mama’s son Walter Lee would like to use the money to open up a liquor store. The house that Mama invested her money in is in a white neighborhood that is not genuinely welcoming to African American families. The community leader of the neighborhood insinuated that the family not move in and went as far as to buy the house back from Mama at a higher price. Following through with this deal would ultimately upset Mama because she does not want surrender as an inferior being due to her race. Mama wants to embrace her family’s strength and pride as she decides to decline on the offer and move into her family’s new home. Similarly, in 1966, Seamus Heaney crafted “Digging,” a poem that begins with the speaker seated at a desk poised to begin writing. As the speaker sits, he reminisces back to the intense laborious work his father did to provide for the young speaker and presumably his family. Eventually, as the speaker continues to reminisce, he begins to think of his grandfather who had also made a living as potato planter and how hard his grandfather worked doing this job. The speaker then ends the poem …show more content…

Many people embrace their parents’ ethics, so therefore they embrace the attitudes of those before them in regards to their working habits. For example in Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Ruth states, “Lena – I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago… I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to – but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!!” (Hansberry, 987) While Ruth is not a biological member of the Younger family, she has adapted to the family’s heritage in that she understands that the family is in a dire financial state. With this knowledge of her family’s situation, Ruth can now understand why it is so critical for her to obtain vigorous work ethics. Ruth has obviously come to the realization that to achieve a large goal of owning a home, one must be a hard worker to compensate for the costs of having a home. Similarly, the speaker in “Digging” states, “By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man” (15-16). This quote illuminates what it means to be influenced by heritage to work hard. The speaker indicates that his father was influenced by his father to become a hard working potato picker in the way he handles his spade. The speaker’s use of the word like indicates that there is a similarity or perhaps an influence between two people in that he compares his

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