A Raisin In The Sun Analysis

Walter Lee is stubborn, very ambitious, and filled with pride at the beginning of the story. He strives for success with the money “Mama,” also known as Lena got from the life insurance from her husband who recently passed away. Walter was so selfish all he wanted was to provide a better life for he and his family because he was not satisfied with their current standards of living. He wants more and wishes to become rich because he believes he never had enough growing up, but at the same time he wants to provide money and societal respect for his family. He put his trust with the money into a person who betrayed him and he ended up losing it all including his sisters schooling money. After this scene in the play Walter was at his lowest point,

A Raisin in the Sun, play by Lorraine Hansberry depicts the life of the Younger family. Youngers is an African American family living in Chicago in 1950s, they are struggling for money. As the play proceeds, they run into a plenty of problems. The younger family is slowly tearing apart. Ruth younger the wife of Walter Lee Younger is holding the family from ripping apart. Ruth is the person who supports everyone in the family. Ruth's capability of thinking through and beyond with her fearless and rational nature makes her mature, selfless and loving women.

When Ruth, Beneatha, and Mama see Walter acting like this, they are shocked and are disappointed in how he is acting. Walter tries to cope with the current situation he is in, and he realizes that his family is by his side and that is what matters to him in that moment.

The idea of family is a central theme in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry alludes to the Old Testament book of Ruth in her play to magnify “the value of having a home and family”(Ardolino 181). The Younger family faces hardships that in the moment seem to tear them apart from one another, but through everything, they stick together. The importance of family is amplified by the choices of Walter and Beneatha because they appear to initiate fatal cracks in the Younger family’s foundation, but Mama is the cement who encourages her family to pull together as one unit. The hardships of the family help develop a sense of unity for the Younger household.

       Lena, Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha Younger all lived under the same roof, but their dreams were all different. Being the head of the household, Lena dreamed the dreams of her children and would do whatever it took to make those dreams come true. Walter, Lena's oldest son, set his dream on the liquor store that he planned to invest with the money of his mother. Beneatha, in the other hand, wanted to become a doctor when she got out of college and Ruth, Walter's wife, wanted to be wealthy. "A Raisin in the Sun" was a book about "dreams deferred", and in this book that Lorraine Hansberry had fluently described the dreams of the Younger family and how those

In the book “A Raisin in the Sun”, love is defiantly a major key towards keeping the “Younger” family together as they go through thick and thin. Multiple times in the book, a character known as “Walter” apart of the Younger family screws up, whether it be, pursuing a silly addictive dream or investing family money, it never turned out well for Walter. Walter’s mom, Lena aka “mama” however, always loved Walter and although didn’t show it often, supported his drive to strive for greatness and greatly awarded him near the end of the book. Walter’s sister Beneatha however, was not impressed at his short comings and often called him out where he fell short by belittling him with insults but, that

Characteristics and Thematic Significance Walter is Lena’s oldest child and is married to Ruth. As the ambitious man that he is, he still caused everyone in his family lots of trouble. With

“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.

A Raisin in a Sun and The Help both take place in the 1950s and 1960s, where gender roles were very prominent in families. In A Raisin in the Sun Walter Younger became the head of the household when his father died. When Lena Younger cashes the check, sh gives Walter the money and says”It ain’t much, but it’s all I got left in the world and I’m putting it in your hands. I’m telling you to be the head of the family from now on like you supposed to be.” (Hansberry 107). Lena Younger is very old fashioned when it comes to her family. You can also see this when Mama doesn’t understand Beneatha’s modern way of thinking about expressing herself. Mrs. Younger gives Walter the money from the insurance check to take care of the family’s finances. She does this because she believe Walter should be in charge of the house even though Lena is the oldest in the family. After Aibileen witnessed Raleigh Leefolt telling his wife, Elizabeth, what to do she remarks, “And like men do, Mister Raleigh Leefolt walk out the door where he don’t have to give nobody no explanations about nothing.” (Stockett 432). In the 1950s and 1960s, men were considered the head of the household and sole provider. Mae Mobley was caught playing a game with her

As the events unfold the money is lost, without the money Walter thinks his dreams are gone. Mama on the other hand feels that with the money gone, it will not change things, she thinks they can make due. Throughout, all of this both Mama and Walter seem to have forgotten about Ruth and the baby on the way. The fact appears to be that neither of them have considered what is really necessary for the family to grow and have the environment it needs to be healthy. Once they both are able look at the bigger picture they realize sometimes they have to give up their dreams and things they want for the good and growth of the younger

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.

In the book A Raisin in the Sun by Larraine Hansberry, Walter and Mama are the two most influential characters to the plot. Walter is obnoxious and always thinks about himself while Mama is forceful and very strict. They both play a major role in the story. Both have changed or impacted the plot and characters feelings and or thoughts. Without them in the story it would be very different.

Walter Lee Younger, Lena's son, is second only to Lena in arousing sympathy and pathos from the audience. The entire play shows the development of Walter's quest for manhood. Similar to Lena, Walter's dream of owning a liquor store becomes hindered by his economic station, or lack of money, and his social position. In the opening scenes of A Raisin in the Sun, Walter does not occupy the position of head of the household. This secondary position to Mama demonstrates his frustration with his limiting environment. Even Walter's job show subservience and inequality as a chauffeur to wealthy white people. Elizabeth Phillips comments, "Consquently, he[Walter] is forever on the lookout for a means of making more money, not only to enable him to give luxuries as well as necessities, but also to satisfy the deep inner need of every man to prove that he is capable of great achievement" (54).

Upon walking out of Krannert's production of "A Raisin in the Sun," an eerie silence drizzled about the audience as people murmured and slowly shuffled towards the exits. After witnessing such a powerful yet melancholy piece of theater work, words seemed inappropriate. For three hours, "A Raisin in the Sun" encompassed us with racial, economic, and social issues of the 1950s. Swirling portions of humor, disgrace, pride, and sadness into a smooth blend, the play developed many twists and turns that kept the audience and myself completely alert. Throughout the three acts I could feel the audience, as well as myself, totally devoting themselves to the play. But after taking a step back, the play proved to

What makes a person make a good choice or a bad choice? What influences that person? Is it the people around that person? These are all questions to wonder about, and in the end of the script it is all answered. Walter in “A Raisin in The Sun,” by Lorraine Hansbery, is a character surrounded by women who do not understand him. Over the course of the story, Walter makes many choices that change their lives in the story, because of Ruth, Beneatha, and Mama.