A Raisin In The Sun Analysis

This caused tension among the family for there was constant arguing and bicke- ring. This situation is far to common in families today, particularly is there is money involved and everyone has their own dreams as to what to do with it. At the end of the play Walter looses $6,500 dollars therefore hindering his and Benetha’s dream. Lena held onto her dream by moving the family to the new house.

What is the meaning of money for you? For some people money means the world to them and even where the only place they can find happiness. However, for others money doesn’t mean anything to them; those people can live just with what they have and still be happy. According to “A Raisin in the Sun” written by Lorraine Hansberry demonstrates some of the conflicts people of color had in the late 1950’s when the subject involved money. Walter, one of the main characters of the play and also the only grown man of the family had the most problems with money, but at the same time he just wanted the best for his family. Beneatha, Walter’s sister, wanted to prove that a black woman could be a doctor not just a nurse to the racist society they were living in. Mama, the mother of Walter and Beneatha. Always trying to do the right thing for her family. All Mama wanted was a successfully family in a perfect house.

In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the story is set in 1950s Southside Chicago, in a red-lined neighborhood. Although the majority of the story is set within the scope of the neighborhood, the perceptions of the world held by the inhabitants of that neighborhood vary greatly. Mama and Beneatha, two quintessential members of the Younger family and cohabitors of this neighborhood, have vastly disparate perceptions of the world, likely because of the discrepancies, fueled by changing times, in what they each consider to be the baseline of society , from which they wish to improve.

Walter does not keep his hopes up for his dream long though they are again crushed. The money Mama gives Walter he gives to Willy Harris. Willy runs away with the money and Walter is back to the way he was the first two times his dream is deferred. Walter makes the decision to call Carl Lindner. Walter is going to sell the house Mama just payed for because he feels like money is what will make his dream come true. Walter talks a big game but, when Mr. Lindner shows up to the apartment Walter is unable to sell the house due to his son being present. Walter finally realizes that his dream may not come true this very moment but, by selling the house it would take away from the rest of the family’s dreams.

“Money is not the key to happiness,” no big pay amount would make much of a difference. As people in America everybody thinks you cannot afford to avoid the unhappiness of having to  life,  having plenty of cash does not make your any more enjoyable then what it is in the present. Happiness depends on how you feel towards your loved ones which in Lorraine Hansberry's Play, “A Raisin In the Sun” Walter's obsession with money often caused him to act unkindly to his loved ones. In the book Raisin in the Sun a family from the Southside of Chicago they lived in a small apartment trying to find a way out of the community they have lived in. The Younger family was dealing with living in a white dominant society dealing with poverty and prejudice acts. The Youngers’ try to ignore the obstacles and stay on their feet throughout the 1950s.

In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry many character have dreams. Beneatha’s to become a doctor, Mama’s to buy a house and Walter’s to own a liquor store. These dreams affect each character differently. In A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry illustrates Walter Lee’s dream of owning a liquor store affects him negatively by causing him to constantly be thinking about money and causing him to make bad decisions, it also affects him positively, by teaching him an important life lesson.

The events of A Raisin in the Sun revolve around the main theme of dreams and manhood. In the story, the Younger family has always had big dreams, but due to racism and prejudice, they unceasingly watch their dreams deferred. Walter’s dream throughout the play is to provide for his family by becoming a businessman, but his dreams are postponed after he must work full-time at a menial, trifling, and meaningless job as a chauffeur. When Mama gives him the remaining sixty-five thousand dollars of the life insurance check, he believes that he can finally achieve his dream, only to loose the money and have his dreams deferred once more. The title “A raisin in the sun” is also a reference to dreams, from the poem “Harlem”. In the poem, “a raisin in the sun “is a metaphor for deferred dreams. When a grape is baked in the sun, it shrinks, and withers, but does not disappear. Similarly, members of the Younger family have dreams, but the dreams wither and are deferred due to their financial struggles. Even though the dreams wither, they do not disappear, and they renew their dreams after they receive the life insurance check. Mama’s old plant is a symbol of her perseverance for her long-time dream of having her own house in spite of austere circumstances. The plant struggles to grow by the apartment kitchen window with its lack of light and resources, but Mama keeps it alive regardless. Similarly, her family does not have adequate recourses (they don’t have a house nor enough money). When her dream of moving the to house seems to be delayed, she goes to the window and looks at her plant before declaring, “Well—ain’t it a mess in here, though? […] All this unpacking and everything we got to do.” It is significant how she looks at her plant when her dream seems to be deferred again, since it means that she is looks at the plant for hope. At the very end of the play, Mama returns to the apartment to move her potted plant to a garden in the new house, symbolizing that she finally achieved her dream of raising her family in a true house.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, a novel about the life of a black family in Chicago after World War II, took an allusion to A Dream Deferred, a poem by Langston Hughes. Therefore the characters in the play and their dreams share similarities to the simile provided by Hughes. The simile of “a raisin in the sun” (2) encounters with Beneatha Younger, a young college student, who dreams of studying in a medical school but is criticized by her family. The dream seems aggravates the family conflict, but it represents Beneatha’s hope of helping the family.

Cynthia Kersey once said, “The only opinion about your dream that counts is yours. The negative comments of others merely reflects their limitations- not yours.” This quote applies to Beneatha, a character from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun, because throughout the book readers see her talk about her aspirations in life and everyone always tells her she is aiming too high. They tell her that she should not be so bold and to settle and do what a typical woman should, but she is so driven she refuses to let them degrade her and her dream. She continues to push for what she wants no matter what anyone says. Throughout the book A Raisin In The Sun Beneatha appears to be insensitive, strong-willed

In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, there are a number of symbols that represent various concepts that can all be traced back to issues on race. Many symbols in The Raisin in the Sun, for example, capture the restricted opportunity given to the Younger family and African Americans as a whole; these symbols show the true magnitude of the issue of race at the time the drama was written. Nonetheless, among the strongest hidden meanings in A Raisin in the Sun, is not a symbol but a character. Travis Younger is a living, breathing motif that firmly represents the young hope for the African American community.

Lorraine Hansberry, famous playwright and social activist, had many experiences from her childhood to draw on when writing her works, many of which are especially present in A Raisin in the Sun. An example of this would be the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee in 1940. Lorraine Hansberry’s family moved to a white neighborhood in Chicago and was evicted because the community had previously attempted to create a racially restrictive covenant preventing African Americans from moving into the neighborhood. Though the case was eventually brought before the Supreme Court and decided in favor of Hansberry’s family, it was not because the neighborhood community was discriminating against African Americans. The case was eventually decided in favor of Hansberry because the required number of people had not signed the covenant so it could not legally be in effect (Hansberry v. Lee). Though this event was decided in the family's favor, it can be argued that it was for the wrong reasons, even if it allowed the family to keep their house. This event was affected Lorraine Hansberry's writing in the future and was so impactful that she wrote a similar event into her play, A Raisin in the Sun.

Deferred dreams are a significant component of "A Raisin in the Sun"; the word "dream" is used a total of fourteen times throughout the play. Mama,

With Hughes' intentions as a background, the thematic implications of the poem which opens Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun are significant. Not only is the play's title taken directly from a line in Langston Hughes' poem about deferred dreams, but also the epigraph poses a question that the play attempts to answer. Hansberry's effort to reflect upon the power and implication of dreams leads to a number of possible answers to "What happens to a dream deferred?". In this essay, particular lines in the poem have been strategically linked to Beneatha, Lena and Walter’s characters as a way to show how Hansberry created a colorful and complex study of human

She works as a domestic maid to help support the family. She has lost a husband and a baby, but still stands proud. Lena inherits insurance money ($10,000) from her husband’s death. Her dream is to buy a house to fulfil her and her husband’s past dream and move her family up another economical step. She sees that house as a thing to pass to later generations. She says, "'seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile'" She was against Walter investing in a liquor store because she believed it was sinful, as she was Christian. However, giving her son a chance, she gives him $6500, the rest of the money. She tells him to put $3000 in a band account for Beneatha’s medical school tuition to again pass down to later generations, and the rest he can use for his own purposes. However, Walter blows all of the money on the investment, caught in the moment of his dream, putting in all $6500 dollars for the investment. That is the point in which Lena’s dream starts to “rot” and “stink like rotten

Lena, Walter, Ruth, and Benaetha all live under one roof, but they all have different dreams. As Lena dreams that the dreams of her children should come true by using the money of their father’s life insurance and her family must be united in whatever economic and social circumstances they have to face. Walter Lee dreams of a liquor store. He thinks that having a liquor store; he can make his family’s economic condition good. Ruth dreams to have a wealthy and fine family, so that they don’t have to be worry for minor things. Beneatha