Gender Roles In A Raisin In The Sun

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,

In Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun a number of social issues are both explicitly and subtly exemplified through out the characters experiences and relationships. Living in a cramped Chicago apartment, the Youngers’ display both influential goals and conflicting restraints. Beneatha Youngers is a controversial character; she complicates society’s typical gender roles, introduces the wrestle between assimilation and ancestry of African-Americans, but specifically serves as a paradigm for her generation in the play.

Ruth stresses the importance of maintaining a good image of her family. When George arrives to take Beneatha out, Walter and Beneatha are not being well mannered, so Ruth takes control and tries to make-up for their behavior. “Beneatha, you got company-what’s the matter with you? Walter Lee Younger, get down off that table and stop acting like a fool…(80)” Ruth is also independent and kind.

At the beginning of the play Walter Lee younger believes that manhood stems from being able to provide for one’s family. We first encounter Walter’s concept of manhood when he and Ruth are arguing over breakfast and Walter says, “I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live…” (Hansberry 478). This begins to show his ideas because it shows that he is getting older and he still cannot provide for his family. One thing that might hurt Walter the most

Walter struggles in understanding who he needs to be for his family. He wants to take his place as the patriarch of the family, but he feels incapable of providing them with the lifestyle they deserve. This concern is always at the forefront of his mind, and it affects his attitude and outlook. The anxiety that Walter is dealing with creates confrontation with his sister. He fears that her dream will interfere with his own agenda of making a better life for his family. The severity of the tension becomes more and more apparent with Walter’s unwise investment. Walter is dealing with the burden that he has let his family down, while Beneatha is flabbergasted by the reality that her future has been snatched away from her, and she had no control over it. While reflecting on the situation, Beneatha remarks, “ I sound like a human who just had her future taken right out of my hands! While I was sleeping….things were happening in this world that directly concerned me and nobody consulted me—they just went out and did things—and changed my life” (Hansberry 3.15). Walter and Beneatha’s individual issues with the outcome of the situation cause them to find fault with one another during a time when their family needs to pull together to get through such a financial hardship. Walter is in an emotional pit; his turning to alcohol and music instead of his family for support expands the

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.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, centers on an African American family in the late 1950s. Hansberry directs her work towards specifically the struggles faced by African Americans during the late 1950s. Through the dialogue and actions of her characters, she encourages not only a sense of pride in heritage, but a national and self-pride in African Americans as well.

Walter instead of begging at the feet of Mr. Linder accepting the money too not move in the white neighborhood he, stands his ground on behalf of the family and states that they’ve worked hard their whole lives and are deserving of a spot in the white neighborhood, and despite discrimination are ready to live their lives in that neighborhood. At that point Walter got the respect from his sister who rarely admits her love towards him but, also the infatuation and justification from his wife, Ruth, who was very proud. When Mr. Linder tried to move onto Mrs. Younger (Mama-Lena) she state’s “I am afraid you don’t understand. My son said we was going to move and there ain’t nothing left for me to say.” (3.1.137) standing by her son and completely supporting him and his decision as the head of the household. Walter finally felt his manhood coming back, as Mr. Linder shut his briefcase and welcomed them too the neighborhood despite the problems they will face later on. The family celebrated and packed their stuff into the moving trucks immediately, and headed for the start of their new lives!

The Younger family has not been able to experience the finer things in life, and Walter, being the authoritative male figure, feels he is at fault knows that a change is needed. Walter’s solution is to use his father’s life insurance money to fund the acquiring of a liquor license. The women of the household are always ordering around Walter. It’s Ruth, Mama, or Beneatha telling him how to run things, and when he gets a chance to take the initiative by using the money to invest in his liquor license, his friend betrays him, and his dreams are crushed.

Walter’s believes in the beginning, of the book to be a man you have to be career oriented and making enough money to provide for your family. In the beginning of the book, Ruth is making eggs for Walter as they discuss what to do with the money from the life insurance. Ruth is focused on making breakfast while Walter is focused on how a man would respond as, “I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby!.” (37) The fact that it’s choking walter to death that he can not provide for his family and be successful without the life insurance money shows that his mainfocus is achieving for his family . Walter believes his family should not only have enough money to get by, but thinks they should have a surplus of material objects. Walter tells Mama, “sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking ’bout things … sitting there turning deals worth millions of dollars …”sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me.” (76) As Walter sees his opportunity start to pass he starts to see he need to start focusing on his career.

Walter’s mother comes in the room when he receives the terrible news and asks, “ Son… is it gone? All of it? Beneatha’s money too?” which soon leads to Walter Lee’s admittance of the loss saying, “I never went to the bank at all… Yes...All of it… It’s all gone, ”soon ensuring his beating from his mother (Hansberry 561). When the family finds out about this tragedy, the instant instinct of all of the family members was to blame it all on Walter Lee, accusing him of being the reason they will not achieve their dreams. The family does not stop to think about the pain and embarrassment Walter is going through and Lena, the mother of the family, is quick to bring this up saying, “Have you cried for that boy today? I don’t mean for yourself or for the family cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him… Make sure you done taken into account what hills and what valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is,” ensuring that no one person in the family could blame Walter for the deferral of their dreams due to the loss of their money (Hansberry 573). The family has one goal each of them selfishly wants. Each has a different plan they desire with the money they are going to acquire, such as when Beneatha says she plans to become a doctor. The family knows this will be a costly choice and Walter is quick to say, “Have we figured out yet just how much that medical

Walter does not have control over his own responsibilities. Therefore, if he was given all the resources needed to provide his family his poor judgement and lack of business sense would create further stress on the family. Ruth, Mama, and his sister Beanetha attack him from every angle about his doubtful ideals. Ironically, those ideals are what Walter needs to shape and justify his manhood. Without ideals and proper resources to obtain them, a man's existence can be regarded as insignificant. There are many obstacles in the way of Walter?s dream of opening a liquor store, as he tries to explain to his wife, Ruth, about what he has to do, ?Baby, don?t nothing happen for you in this world ?less you pay somebody off!?(Hansberry 33) Walter's determination to open the liquor store can be viewed as means to an end to his family?s hardships.

In the play Walter Lee Younger Junior is a 35-year protagonist who can't provide or stand up to be the man to his family. Walter Lee Younger Junior suffered so hard and he was tired of they way him and his family were living in poverty and he's trying to take away poverty from his family and try to figure out a new, and better ways to secure its economic prosperity. Walter is going insane due to all

Walter begins to drink, stay away from home, and to constantly argue with his wife, Ruth. Walter's life is contrasted by the role of his recently widowed mother, who holds to more traditional values of acceptance of life's lot and of making the best of any situation. Walter Lee's "Mama" holds Walter's father up as an example of a man with pride and a man that, despite racial injustice in a dualistic society, worked hard to provide for his family. This adds to Walter's frustration. Walter now feels incapable and small in his mama's eyes.

Showing his frustration to his mother, Walter does not feel like he will ever acquire his dream because he feels like he never got the chance or opportunity to. The inability of not able to provide a better life for his household is causing him to stress, act out of character and clouding his decision making. With nowhere else to turn he thought he could use his father’s life insurance money to invest into a liquor store which turned into a scam. Walter feeling trapped from making advancements in life, he makes a huge mistake and learns from this error. In the play Walter is talking to mother describing his anger,