The Theme Of Dreams In A Rasin In The Sun

Ruth will go beyond her way get make her family happy. She started working more hours to make everything happen for them. One day Mamma give Walter half of the money, but she said to put three thousand in the saving for Beneatha’s school but Water didn’t listen but he put the whole 6,500. Ruth and Mamma were very upset but what happen happen already. In the book Ruth say “ I don’t know what it is- but he needs something I can’t give him anymore”(Hansberry, pg.85). Ruth relationship this quote shows the tension and misunderstanding of Ruth and Walter in their relationship. Ruth shows that she honestly doesn't know what to do to help their relationship. When Walter did that mistake by butting all the money to store it became a big problem to the family. Ruth family poor financial situation has to double as a housewife and working mother. Both Ruth and her husband Walter are frustrated with their lives, and their marriage is in trouble. Now Ruth has to find some type of job to cover the house bills and everything else. Ruth and Walter finally found a day to go out and she was telling everyone about it. She said “Lord, that man – don’t changed so ‘round here. You know – you know what we did last night? Me and Walter Lee?…(Smiling to herself) We went to the movies. (Looking at BENEATHA to see if she understands). We went to the movies. You know the last time me and Walter went to the movies together?BENEATHA No. RUTH Me

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)

When a dream that consumes one’s desires possess their mind, it can often blind them and not make them realize the truth of how problematic and nearly impossible it is to achieve their goal. A good example of this is the character Beneatha Younger from A Raisin in the Sun. Beneatha is a intellectual black twenty year old woman who attends college dreaming of becoming a doctor. However, this play is taking place in the 1950’s while laws have been made to protect black people there is

Sonny’s dream job has always been to become a piano player in a jazz band. When he informs his older brother of his future plans the reaction was not what he expected. But contrary to his brother’s opinion Sonny believes that “people ought to do what they want to do” (87). Because he had found his calling, he no longer needed school so he dropped out while disappointing his bother once again. He dedicated the majority of his time to perfect his musical talent. As he grew closer to the piano he grew further from people, Isabel even stated once that, “it was like living with a sound” (89). Isabel, brother’s wife, was also not supportive of Sonny. Following the fight with Isabel in regards of him quitting school, he moved out and turned to drugs

In Langston Hughes’ poem, the author gives us vivid examples of how dreams get lost in the weariness of everyday life. The author uses words like dry, fester, rot, and stink, to give us a picture of how something that was originally intended for good, could end up in defeat. Throughout the play, I was able to feel how each character seemed to have their dreams that fell apart as the story went on. I believe the central theme of the play has everything to do with the pain each character goes thru after losing control of the plans they had in mind. I will attempt to break down each character’s dream and how they each fell apart as the play went on.

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).

What happens to a dream when it suspends in time? Does it stay suspended within a man through his lifetime, dormant, unreachable, and far away? Does its power grow and ultimately force him to act to make it happen sometime in the future-if not in his lifetime then in the future members of his kin? On the other hand, does it eat away at him, crystallizing and internally segmenting his own derived purpose and meaning of life until it is indiscernible from its original state of grandeur and grace? Those are some of the questions that Lorraine Hansberry poses for consideration in her play, A Raisin in the Sun. It is no accident that she chose Langston Hughes' poem as a gateway into the incredible experience of true life, living, dreaming and

First, Ruth, is one of the women in the house who changes Walter’s decisions in the story. Her relationship towards him is poor. Ruth nags at the beginning, saying “Eat your eggs Walter” (Hansberry 34). This angers him because she repeats it multiple times throughout, not understanding him, showing their strained relationship. Ruth is also shown to not be on Walter’s side on multiple occasions. For example, when Walter finds out that Mama spent the money on a new house, he does not like it. Ruth however is not feeling the same way as him, and tells him “Walter honey, be glad” (Hansberry 92). Ruth tells Walter to be glad, because their views are different. Ruth thinks this was beneficial to the family, yet Walter does not. This hurts Walter throughout the story as he feels alone with no one on his side. Walter know this when he says “Cause ain’t nobody with Me! Not even my own mother!” (Hansberry 85). Since he is alone, and believes no one cares about him, he tries to fix his own mistake when he decides he will get more money saying, “That White man is going to walk in that door all to write checks for more money than we ever had.” (Hansberry 143). Ruth does not like Walter’s idea, but he does not care as no one is on his side, which disappoints Ruth.

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

“A Raisin in the Sun” and "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)," written by Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes, respectively, represent the complimentary themes of dreams. “A Raisin in the Sun” depicts a family’s struggle for survival. The Younger family who lives in Southside, Chicago, fights for their civil rights during the 1960’s. They each have dreams and goals. Hughes illustrates, in “Harlem” that sometimes dreams dry up like raisins in the sun. Two stories analytically provide unexpected irony at the end. Jason Miller’s article, “Foreground and Prereading,” references these pieces to illustrate ideas and obstacles in the character’s lives – defining how obstacles strengthen the family’s perseverance while demonstrating how dreams and hopes can be deferred but are not soon forgotten.

       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

Dreams let people’s imagination soar and give them the desire to achieve wonderful things. Although, every now and then, a wall may stand in the way of you and your dreams. From small inconveniences or life impending problems, conflicts can impact your life and can make you want to give up on your dreams all together. As Amelia Earhart once said,” Everyone has oceans to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless, maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?” Amelia dreamt of becoming a skilled and famed female aviator and worked hard towards her fame by taking flying lessons and participating in flying derbies long before she made history flying solo across the Atlantic and attempted her trip around the world. While Amelia was

Mama is a very family oriented woman. You can see that when Walter is having the conversation with Mama about Ruth wanting to have an abortion, “...I’m waiting to hear how you be your father's son. Be the man he was…”. This quote shows us that Mama wants Walter to be responsible and be like his father instead of running away when times get tough. Mama wants the best for her children, she shows that by reiterating that she raised them better. In one scene where Beneatha said that there wasn't a God, Mama replied with “Now—you say after me, in my mother’s house there is still God. … There are some ideas we ain’t going to have in this house. Not long as I am at the head of this family.” This quote shows that Mama wants Beneatha to believe in God and make sure that she keeps God in her family. When mama got the insurance check from her husband's death, she saw that her family was starting to fall apart. So, mama went out and bought a house so that they would do something good with the money that would help bring her family back

She tries to do as much as she can. She just wants Walter to love him but that is tough since he has been so sad all the time. All he wants is to make a name for himself and save his family. Unfortunately, he was a little too upset with Ruth so he uttered something that the could not take back. During one of their arguments on page 87, Ruth asks, “Honey, why can’t you stop fighting me?” so he responds with,”Who’s fighting you? Who even cares about you?” This crushes Ruth and she doesn’t know what to do. She talks of how she is going to get an abortion for the new baby they will have. She was so sad because of how her husband does not seem to care.Fortunately, she doesn’t but that relates to Aretha Franklin’s song, “Respect.” The last couple lines in the song are,”When you come home, or you might walk in. And find out I'm gone, I got to have a little respect.” Ruth can relate to this because she was going to leave and have the baby aborted. This definitely would have changed things because the whole family would have been hurt by it. Ruth also explains how she wants to leave their tenament for a house. This would help her to have more self-respect being a homeowner. After Walter loses all of the money, Mama is unsure about keeping the house anymore. Ruth quickly stifles her ideas by stating, “Lena – I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago… I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to – but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!” That quote is on page 140 and further explains how Ruth really wanted to leave that house. Ruth wanted to be a difference maker. The neighborhood the family is moving to is made up of only white people, but Ruth is not scared. ON