Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

The American dream has been visualized and pursued by nearly everyone in this nation. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the Younger family that strived for the American dream. The members of the Younger family shared a dream of a better tomorrow. In order to reach that dream, however, they each took different routes, which typified the routes taken by different black Americans.

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore– And then run?" (Langston Hughes). It is important to never lose sight of one’s dream. Dreams are what keep people moving in life, but if they are ignored, they may morph and lose their prevailing form. This is evident in Lorraine Hansberry’s "A Raisin in the Sun", as Walter’s, Beneatha’s, and Mama’s dreams become delayed, distorted, and blurred.

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

Not only is she black but she’s a woman so in the 1950s the whole world was against her. “I know―because that’s what it says in all the novels that men write. But it isn’t. Go ahead and laugh―but I’m not interested in being someone’s little episode in America[...] (page 64)” Beneatha is a feminist and a resilient character but every male figure in her life treats her dream like a joke and a phase. She is belittled by her own brother who tells her to just be a nurse. She is belittled by George Murchinson her boyfriend who tells her that she’s too pretty for thoughts and that her dream is just a girlish fantasy. Even Asagai treats her as lower to himself. But Beneatha has dreams. After seeing a child named Rufus get his face split open and thinking he’d never be put back together, she saw him later all fixed up by doctors. This was a life changing moment. From then on Beneatha wanted to be a doctor and she is working as hard as she can to get there. This money is crucial for Beneatha. In order to become a doctor she needs to go to medical school but in order to go to medical school she needs money. Half of the insurance money was supposed to go towards her college education but instead her brother lost it

Many people go through different moralities in there life some that they believe can change their life for the better but don’t know the consequences. This ties in with issues involving money. Many people believe that money is the way to happiness and do what they can to get money even if it means to hurt your loved ones. In the play “Raisin in the Sun” Walter Lee Younger is man that lives in South Side Chicago and at point in life that he’s in, he wants to do something in his life and make a difference for colored people. The way he believes he can accomplish that is by opening a bar to make money for his family while believing money is the only source of happiness. Walters ideal morality was to make sure he got his hands on the insurance money so he could open up the bar even if it meant his family would suffer when things went wrong.

Dreams are vital to human existence. Without them, a depressing life such as the one the Youngers have in the play A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, would be utterly unbearable. The Youngers were strong and faithful, continuously trying to make their dreams become reality. Even though they were a family plagued by the hardship of poverty, they pushed on through whatever obstacles they encountered. Beneatha, one of the main characters, had the American dream of becoming a doctor, which is affected by her individualism, determination, and expressiveness.

Dreams are important to everyone. Some little girls dream of being a ballerina while some little boys and even teenage boys dream of being a major league baseball player for their favorite team. In the famous drama A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, dreams have a prominent role. The title, even though there’s never a raisin in the drama, is important because: it refers to a poem written by famous poet Langston Hughes and it relates to the dreams of each of the characters.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, a novel about the life of a black family in Chicago after World War II, took an allusion to A Dream Deferred, a poem by Langston Hughes. Therefore the characters in the play and their dreams share similarities to the simile provided by Hughes. The simile of “a raisin in the sun” (2) encounters with Beneatha Younger, a young college student, who dreams of studying in a medical school but is criticized by her family. The dream seems aggravates the family conflict, but it represents Beneatha’s hope of helping the family.

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,

Beneatha wanted to help people. She was the only one in the family to go to college. She had a dream to become a doctor. Beneatha felt like she wanted to help people when they were the most vulnerable. She also wanted to travel to Africa and learn about her background. Beneatha demonstrates her passion to help people when she said this, “That was what one person could do for another, fix him up – sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world…I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know – and make them whole again. This was truly being God…I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt…” Beneatha wants to be able to help people when they can not help themselves. . That is her dream. She wants to be there for the people who do not have many people there. She wants to put in the extra work in school in order to do this. She wants to be able to make a difference in her family. She also wants to be a successful black doctor. There were some successful black doctors during this time, but not many. None that the Younger family actually new. Beneatha is a strong willed woman whose intention in no way disappeared no matter what was going

Walter struggles in knowing his place in the family. He wants to be the head of the family however, he doesn’t have the power to do so. His dream is to support and provide the lifestyle he knows his family deserves. It is slowly eating away at him and it’s always on his mind, which alters his perspective on things, causing him to argue with Beneatha.

In the play, “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry takes place in a small two-bedroom apartment in the southside of Chicago in the 1950’s. The civil rights movement was just beginning around the 1950’s and the South was still segregated because of the Jim Crow Laws. A lot of change was occurring but there was still much more progress ahead. The blacks didn’t receive fair treatment and didn’t have the opportunity for better education. The blacks was still behind the whites, had to work for the whites and put up with the disrespect from the whites.

In the play A Raisin in the Sun there are ups and downs about the dreams that the characters have. This is a awesome play about the Younger family. Especially about Walter, Beneatha, and Mama’s dreams. The dreams they all have are a positive view of their future. These dreams show us that when the characters despite great obstacles, the American dream is still possible for the Younger family.

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

     Walter dreams of owning a liquor store, and he shows this throughout the whole play. Walter feels that “don’t nothing happen for you in this world ‘less you pay somebody off!” Owning a liquor store is Walter’s American dream, as he believes that it will provide him and his family with a greater income so they will not have to live in poverty anymore. However, Hansberry shows through Mama how they have different views of the American dream when she tells Walter that the liquor store would be un-Christian like and that they should spend the money on a new house instead. Hansberry makes Mama more convincing by showing her carrying a Bible as she comes out of her room in the first scene. Mama also is seen asking God for help and talking about God throughout the play. This is shown when Walter admits that the money Mama gave him was gone because his partner took it and Mama says “Oh, God… look down here – and show me the strength.” Mama is very angry that Walter wasted all of Beneatha’s school money, but she doesn’t let her temper get the best of her and instead goes to God for support.