A Raisin In The Sun Generation Gap Essay

Love is never easy. This is especially true in the mid-twentieth century in Chicago, with racism and classism rampant. The family in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun has many problems with their family members, but most importantly, their significant others. The Youngers are a complicated family to begin with, but the addition of class and other problems, they become even more convoluted. But the romance between Ruth and Walter, Mama and her husband, and Beneatha and her two lovers are tangled too, due to the nature of their interactions. In A Raisin in the Sun, the playwright Lorraine Hansberry presents a plethora of relationships and love interests that cause great turmoil, illustrating the strains that can be placed on relationships.

Although she is happy with mama’s decision to buy a house, Ruth is more concerned with receiving the affection of her husband and keeping him happy than the consequences or the moral implications his decisions will have. Ruth maintains the apartment they live in and most of the time, goes along with whatever Walter says. This is where Ruth and Mama differ; Mama wants Walter to be happy but not at the cost of doing something morally wrong, Ruth will do whatever it takes to make Walter happy. We see this when Ruth is contemplating having an abortion in order not to complicate living arrangements in the apartment and to allow Walter the financial means to pursue his goals. She also intends to keep it from Walter so spare him the burden of having to make a decision like that. When Mama find out about the abortion, she is appalled and says, “…we a people who give children life, not who destroys them.” Mama also succeeds in expressing her rich values and nurturing nature in Act III, Scene Three, when it is discovered that Walter has lost the remainder of the insurance money when his liquor store investment partner disappears with the money. Beneatha goes into a rage and openly expresses her hatred and contempt for her brother, and says, “He’s no brother of mine.”(Hansbury 3.3)

She knows that the family, education and society rule are so important. She is not very well educated, but she insists to maintain the personality that people are supposed to be. “Now don’t you start child. It’s to early in the morning to be talking about money. It ain’t Christian.” (41) In the morning, Ruth and Mama has a conversation in kitchen. Ruth tells Mama that Walter wants to use father’s insurance money to invest a liquor company. Mama cannot completely agree with her son. Mama complains that once upon a time freedom used to be life, but now it’s money. On the other hand, she loves her husband because he is worth to be loved. Mama wishes her sun modeled himself after his father. She never felt shame of being laundryman. She is respectably dressed as much as possible. She is a high head when in front of those white people who despise black people. “I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers—but ain’t nobody in my family never ley nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the warth. We ain’t never been that poor. We ain’t never been that—dead inside.” (143) After she buys the house, the white people in community try to ding out the Youngers’ family. They pay more money to ask them move out. As a black woman, Mama is proud of her skin and keeps her unique personality. She refer to live harder, rather than letting people trampling on her with money.

Comparative Analysis Jovany Mares Arizona State University CRJ 433: Death Investigations Mitchell D. Sigal April 26, 2024 Comparative Analysis Introduction Movies and TV shows usually show pathologists and deputy coroners, who are also referred to as coroner investigators, in different ways. Some of the portrayals are very realistic, showing what happens in real life, while others are just exaggerated mostly for dramatic effect. These depictions can show what happens in the field when it comes to investigating deaths, or they can make things seem different from how they are. That is, even though movies and TV shows sometimes show how pathologists and coroner investigators work to perform death investigations, other times they make up some aspects of these roles, which may give people the

There are many events in the play that show how family will be there for you through thick and thin. One of these events is when Walter just argued with Ruth, and Mama stayed to continue to talk to Walter to confirm that he is O.K. This happens on page 72, "Mama: (Quietly) Walter, what's the matter with you?" that statement shows that Mama wanted to check up on Walter to ensure that he is O.K. Towards the end of their talk, Mama breaks it to him that Ruth is pregnant, and she is planning to get rid of the baby. Walter's and Mama's talk show that even when everyone else gave up on Walter; Mama doesn't give up on him. Another event is when Walter lost all of the money Mama gave him, and he didn't put any of it into the bank for Beneatha. Mama still stuck by his side when everyone else didn't trust him

Mama's inheritance of ten thousand dollars left by her deceased husband provides fodder for conflict in the family. Each of the family members, envisioning their own American Dream, has an idea of how the inheritance should be spent. All of these ideas, of course, conflict with Walter's "get rich quick" scheme. Mama, Ruth, and Travis all have the dream of moving to their own home with a white picket fence, a garden, a place for Travis to play outside and a bathroom that is not shared by other

Bernard Rosenberg, an author who wrote books about societal issues in the 1970s, once wrote, “Generation Gap: A chasm, amorphously situated in time and space, that separates those who have grown up absurd from those who will, with luck, grow up absurd.” People grown up in different environments or times have their own morals or methods of operation that would not be politically correct today. This leads to a generation gap between young and old people. The difference between an educated twenty year old with prodigious dreams (Beneatha) and a conservative woman in her early sixties (Mama) is demonstrated In A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry with how it shows generation separates dreams, values, and cultural perspectives as shown with Beneatha and Mama.

In the words of Jim Cocola and Ross Douthat, Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun to mimic how she grew up in the 1930s. Her purpose was to tell how life was for a black family living during the pre-civil rights era when segregation was still legal (spark notes). Hansberry introduces us to the Youngers’, a black family living in Chicago’s Southside during the 1950s pre-civil rights movement. The Younger family consists of Mama, who is the head of the household, Walter and Beneatha, who are Mama’s children, Ruth, who is Walter’s wife, and Travis, who is Walter and Ruth’s son. Throughout the play the Youngers’ address poverty, discrimination, marital problems, and abortion. Mama is waiting on a check from the

     Family values are the context of Mama’s second nurturing lesson to Beneatha. After a conflictive encounter with her brother, Beneatha expresses a lack of respect and love for Walter. Lena Younger first quickly ensures that she correctly heard her daughter. Although Mama does not come across as gentle as she has in the past, her

One of the major conflicts in the play is power struggle between Mama and Walter due to the difference in their view of the American Dream, as shown in the following dialogue,

Mama, however, is strong, spiritual and eager to help her children in any way she can. She values family above and beyond all else, but has the deep insight into the other character's motivations even when she doesn't agree. In the middle of the play (at the fuse for the final conflict), she recognizes that Walter is miserable because no one believes in him and his dreams. She gives him a large chunk of the insurance check to invest in a liquor store even thought she doesn't agree with it. She trusts him with it and, when he loses the money to a "trusted friend," she becomes enraged and begins to physically attack him. However, by the next scene she has forgiven him and tells her daughter that she should do the same; "There is always something to love: when do you think the time is to love somebody the most? It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so!" With those words, Mama seems to symbolize all that is good, solid and peaceful in the world.

Ruth is a very strong woman with morals and a belief in God. Ruth loves her husband and her son and does her very best to take care of them. She is always putting the needs and desires of her family above her own. Ruth has always been supportive of Walter, but recently they have not been communicating well. Ruth tries to convince Mama to allow Walter the chance to invest in the liquor store by saying, “something is happening

The whole family feels trapped like Nina Simone and her song,”I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free.” They have the drive to better themselves and are willing to say what they want to people who try to keep them down. When Mama buys the new house, Ruth is very

Mama is also having to difficulties because of race,she is also struggling because of race . Mama is the mother of Walter and Beneatha, grandma of Travis and mother in law of Ruth. Mama has a plant that represent or symbolizes the younger family and she loves that plant a lot. One quote that shows that she is having trouble because of race, is “ The house they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses . I did the best I could ’’ ( Hansberry 93 ). Mama means that in the black neighborhood they would have to pay even more than they payed in the white neighborhood. Also that people don’t want to mix blacks and whites together. Mama didn’t want to waste a lot of money so she bought it where the whites live so the don’t wasted a lot, they expect for dark skin people to pay more than whites should pay. Another quote that I found that relates to race is “ I see ... him … night after night … come in … and look at that rug … and then look at me … the red showing in his eyes … the veins moving in his head … I seen him grow thin and old before he was forty … working and working and working like somebody’s old horse … killing himself … and you you give it all away in one day ”( Hansberry 129 ). Mama is trying to say that in that time there was even less opportunities especially to a dark skin person like big Walter but big Walter did whatever he could to provide for his family even if it takes everything. Also

The generation Mama was raised in is one that was raised with great frugality. The rebound time after the Great Depression was followed by World War II and then the time of the baby boomers. This time was a time of great prosperity where most people used the money resulting from the boom in production from the war and pension from the military to better their own lives and the lives of their families. She has watched the other people in her age group gain these great homes and prospering. Then Mama is given her chance at her very own home thanks to the passing of her husband. As a child we are all showed what is truly important to our family through the actions we seen taken by our role models. The great depression caused lots of people to be without a home or left with something barely passable as a home. So now as an adult she has worked her whole life to achieve this dream of hers, a home with a garden. On page 44, Ruth says “Lord knows, we 've put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by