A Raisin in the Sun Essay: Importance of Deferred Dreams

Lindner says; “…it is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities…our association is prepared, through the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family.” (II.iii.118) Mr. Lindner told the family that the Clybourne Park Association gathered money to purchase the house Lena had bought, so the Youngers’, a black family, does not move into a white neighbourhood. Another difficulty Lena faces is a dysfunctional family as each one of the main characters fails to cooperate with each other. The lack of cooperation between Bennie and Walter Lee is evident when Ruth says; “don’t be so nasty, Bennie.” (I.i.36) Also, this is visible when Ruth says; “Walter Lee, why don’t you leave that girl alone and get out of here to work.” (I.i.36) The relationship between Walter and Bennie is feeble. The lack of cooperation between Walter Lee and Lena is apparent when the insurance cheque is delivered to the family. Walter Lee wants money from his mother to invest in his business plan and the liquor store, but Lena refuses to help

Langston Hughes was the most famous poet from Harlem, writing during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hughes wanted to show the lives of the black community through his poems and the things they faced in America at that time like racism. He would compare the ways African American experience was different from the white Americans. At the time he was writing, slavery was over for sixty years already, but blacks were still treated unequally everyday. African Americans had a dream that was being held back from them, called a deferred dream. What is a dream deferred? Langston Hughes relates his sequence of poems, “Lenox Avenue Mural,” to this question. It is said that, “The “dream deferred” is the dream of African Americans: a dream of freedom, equality,

In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry you go back in time to when segregation was still aloud. In this play you meet a cast of people with dreams of a better life. The American Dream, to be specific. This dream is portrayed differently for each character, all of which impact the play. Two of these character

This only further infuriates Walter. Not only does his mother make a complete power-grab by buying the house; she bought it in a cracker neighborhood! Walter storms out and is almost ready to kill someone over it. He feels he has lost his only shot at power. Walter comes back home screaming at his whole family, they don’t support him, especially his mother. He accuses her of not supporting his dream.

       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 Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” he discusses the idea of unfulfilled dreams and their plausible outcomes using symbolism and imagery. He initially describes a “deferred” dream as a sun-dried raisin, depicting the dream originally as a fresh grape that now has dried up and “turned black” (Jemie 63). This idea provides Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun with its basic foundation, for it is a play about a house full of unfulfilled dreams. As the poem goes on, Hughes depicts the idea of a deferred dream as something rotten or gone bad. According to Onwuchekwa Jemie, this may be an allusion to the American Dream and its empty promises (Jemie 64).

A Raisin in the sun shows the hardship many needed to face in order to attain this notion of the American Dream. The play did more than simply show what everyone faced, she shows the struggles that many African Americans families had to face when trying to achieve the notion of the American Dream. She does this by showing the environment that many African Americans lived in when there was bombing in the neighborhood or when white people would force African Americans who finally bought a home, out. Lorraine also shows the struggles of the characters of the play like Walter who struggles with the decision he makes and the contradictions that stop him from achieving his goals of being wealthy or when Beneatha goes against the norms of society by becoming a Doctor and trying to do activities that men usually do.While American Dream is quintessential to America because you’re able to go from nothing to something, this notion is unique to African-American since the society work against them even with having the same aspiration because of the prejudice they faced from the society.

In Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun,” she uses the Younger family to show that as characters strive to reach their dreams they often disdain the determinations of others but they may eventually learn to care one another in effort to better their lives. 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Hansberry is a play about a family in the late 1940s that struggles through lack and discrimination to find the American Dream. American Dream the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. This message explores their hopes and dreams. As it shown in the book that everybody wanted to pursue their own dreams and goals. They weren’t thinking about anybody else but their self. The absence of the American Dream does infiltrate much of the play. Each main character in the play seeks to appropriate the "American Dream" in their own lives. The family consist of the Mama, the deeply Christian grandmother; her son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth and son Travis; and Beneatha, her daughter.

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.

A delayed dream can be tough or sweet at the moment, but can overall benefit one in some way. In the play, Raisin in the Sun the Younger’s family is seen with various dreams being handled in different ways. The opening scene starts off with a poem by Hughes Langston called Harlem which brings out the certain problems the family faces with dreams. This poem relates to the characters dream in such cases, Walter relating to the line of festering like a sore, Mama relating to the line raisin in the sun, and Beneatha relating to the line crust and sugar over.

       The epigraph and title of the play, A Raisin in the Sun, are taken from Langston Hughe's famous 1951 poem "Montage of a Dream Deferred." Hughe's poem questions whether people surrender to circumstances when their aspirations are frustrated or whether their dreams explode in unpredictable ways after the accumulation of continuos disappointments. Walter gets close to exploding. After spending many years trying to open a liquor store, it is only his father's life insurance check that may allow him to finally achieve his dream of being an independent man and his own boss. Walter was not

In the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun she brings to light the life as an African American in a metropolitan area in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. At the time, her play brought insight to the African American plead for freedom to move up in their communities and to have equal opportunity to have their own American dream. Her understanding of African American family was really shown in this play with the formation of the family who was struggling with the loss of the father of the house, but she also showed how opportunity can come from anywhere and the pursuit of each family members dreams can provide opportunity for a better life, better known as the American dream. The play “A Raisin in the Sun” carries a lot of

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

Lorraine Hansberry, the author of A Raisin in the Sun, supports the theme of her play from a montage of, A Dream Deferred, by Langston Hughes. Hughes asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?” He suggests many alternatives to answering the question. That it might “dry up like a raisin in the sun,” or “fester like a sore.” Yet the play maybe more closely related to Hughes final question of the poem, “Or does it explode?” The play is full of bombs that are explosions of emotion set off by the frustration of the Younger family, who are unable to grasp the possible reality of their dreams. The family shares the dream of having a better life but compete against each other for the insurance money given to Mama after her husband’s death. The

A dream is a goal in life, not just dreams experienced during sleep. Most people use their dreams as a way of setting future goals for themselves. Dreams can help to assist people in getting further in life because it becomes a personal accomplishment. Langston Hughes's poem "Dream Deferred" is speaks about what happens to dreams when they are put on hold. The poem leaves it up to the reader to decide what dream is being questioned.