Happiness In Lorraine Hansberry's 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,

Every black male's plight in America can be regarded as a provider for his family. However, society does not afford black males the benefit of feeling secure about providing for their families. It can be easy for anyone to criticize society and place the blame on America for not affording Walter the opportunities of his white counterparts. 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 insignificannot

During the 1900s many black families barely had enough money to pay for the basic necessities needed to live. At times some families would receive a significant sum of money, something they were not used to getting. Deciding on how to spend this money is what caused problems among some families. In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she argues that there are times when in a state of financial instability and where money is a necessity to completing one’s dream that some family members choose to put their dreams over others when suddenly given the opportunity. After Mama’s husband died she was bound to receive an insurance check that would be used by the Younger family. Before even receiving the

that ain’t anything at all. Mama, I don't know if I can make you understand” (73). Walter is not able to provide for his family by American standards, and as a result, his family lives in poverty.

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.

(page 45-46)” In the first act alone, the audience is shown the great disparities between the American dream for a white man and the American dream for people of color. However, now with this insurance money from Big Walter’s death, there is a chance of someone their dream, the problem that the Younger’s face is which someone should get to use the money. Beneatha needs it for college to become a doctor, Walter needs it to invest in a liquor store so he can finally “be somebody.” But Mama wants to use that money to buy a house. She wants to leave their current rented apartment and she wants a nice house in the suburbs where she could have a garden and “with a yard where Travis could play in the summer. (page 44)” Mama believes that a change of scenery is what the family needs and that it will bring them back together. These three characters have the most conflicting wants for the

In the first act of the play Walter begins to talk about the arrival of the check. He tells his wife Ruth to talk to his mom about the liquor store he wants to start because she will listen more to her than him. In the story Walter says, “Mama would listen to you. You know she listen to you more than she do me and Bennie”. This quote from Walter states that he is using his mother’s loyalty and kindness to his wife to benefit him, he is only thinking about himself. In the play Walter says, “you just sip your coffee, see, and say easy like that you been thinking bout that deal Walter Lee is so interested in, bout the store and all.”

Through her character Walter Younger, Hansberry created a real example of Black America's struggle to reach the American Dream. Walter’s Dream was to invest in a liquor store. He was going to achieve this dream by asking his mother to take the check and invest in the liquor store. His dream was deferred because his mother already made a choice on making a down payment on a house. Walter says “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE LISTEN TO ME TODAY” (p.70). It shows that nobody wants to take the time to listen to what he thinks or wants to do.To him he’s trying to find a way to get the family out of poverty. Walter’s American Dream of getting out of the Chicago ghetto was also deferred because he isn’t making enough money on his own to invest into

Walter asserting his manhood against his mother’s matriarchal dominance can be seen as the principal conflict in Hansberry’s work. Walter’s mother in settled in her traditional and old schools ways and views masculinity as a life-affirming Black tradition, whereas Walter equates manhood and masculinity with how much money one has and being his family’s sole provider. When Walter’s father died his mother received $10,000 in life insurance payments. She takes a portion of the money and uses it to purchase a house in a well-established suburban white neighborhood. In terms of the remaining money, Walter wanted to invest in a liquor store. After much persuading, Mama finally gives in and gives Walter the rest of the money. When the investment goes belly up Walter loses all the money. His attempt to establish his manhood ironically made him

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.

No matter how hard they try, there are some people who cannot get ahead in life. Walter Lee Younger is a man who is frustrated with his current position in life, and every disappointment he has encountered thus far. Although he tries to be a loving man, sometimes he does not know how to show the idea of love, 'Sometimes...sometimes...I don't even know how to try' (Hansberry 89). His position in life can be regarded as symbolic of every black male struggling to provide for his family by any means necessary. Although Walter has a job, it seems inadequate for his survival. As a result, he has become frustrated and lacks good judgement. Throughout this play Walter searches

Suddenly, things changed, and Walter and his family came into quite a bit of money. Walter’s mama got a check for ten thousand dollars from her husbands life insurance after he passed away, which was a lot of money in that period of time. A nice house or a liquor store could easily be bought with half of the money from the check. Since the check was actually written out to mama, the money was all technically hers, so all that she wanted to do with it was buy her new house for her family, but stubborn Walter, he wanted his liquor store, and would stop at nothing to get it. When he finally realized that his mama was never going to give him the money to get the liquor store, he took it upon himself to get it himself. He eventually stole a portion of his mama’s money to get the store, but he was taken for a fool when the other person that he was making a deal with, stole all of his money. Now he had nothing, and mama had only some of her money.

Lorraine Hansberry’s novel, A Raisin in the Sun, revolves around a middle-class African-American family, struggling during World War II. By reading about the Younger’s true to life experiences, one learns many important life lessons. One of the aforementioned would be that a person should always put family’s needs before their own. There are many examples of this throughout the novel. Just a few of these would be the example of Ruth and her unborn baby, Walter regaining the respect of his family, and Mama and her unselfish ways.

He is envious of the people in the establishment who can afford a higher standard of life, while he is stuck in a two room kitchen apartment, where they must share one bathroom with rest of the floormates. Walter hate seeing man around his age or even younger than him having such a lavish lifestyle because he believes that he would gotten the same type of opportunity if it was not for the color of his skin. Seeing his conversations with his mom, the readers can see that Walter feels that he is hopeless in the American