Theme Of A Raisin In The Sun

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

The idea of family is a central theme in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry alludes to the Old Testament book of Ruth in her play to magnify “the value of having a home and family”(Ardolino 181). The Younger family faces hardships that in the moment seem to tear them apart from one another, but through everything, they stick together. The importance of family is amplified by the choices of Walter and Beneatha because they appear to initiate fatal cracks in the Younger family’s foundation, but Mama is the cement who encourages her family to pull together as one unit. The hardships of the family help develop a sense of unity for the Younger household.

In the book “A Raisin in the Sun”, love is defiantly a major key towards keeping the “Younger” family together as they go through thick and thin. Multiple times in the book, a character known as “Walter” apart of the Younger family screws up, whether it be, pursuing a silly addictive dream or investing family money, it never turned out well for Walter. Walter’s mom, Lena aka “mama” however, always loved Walter and although didn’t show it often, supported his drive to strive for greatness and greatly awarded him near the end of the book. Walter’s sister Beneatha however, was not impressed at his short comings and often called him out where he fell short by belittling him with insults but, that

The play by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, presents an African-American family living in poverty in the 1950’s. The family receives ten thousand dollars from deceased Mr. Younger’s insurance; the money is supposed to be distributed in buying a house, Beneatha’s education, and Walter’s liquor store investment. However, Walter invests wrongly and loses more than half of the money, forcing Beneatha to consider moving to Africa to pursue an education. Beneatha Younger’s struggle with segregation while pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor demonstrates that education can be obtained with determination and discipline.

driven by a force to prove himself but also to get revenge on his father, Walt, whose past continually

Though there was a heightened sense of tension over civil rights in the late 1950s when A Raisin in the Sun was written, racial inequality is still a problem today. It affects minorities of every age and dynamic, in more ways than one. Though nowadays it may go unnoticed, race in every aspect alters the way African-Americans think, behave, and react as human beings. This is shown in many ways in the play as we watch the characters interact. We see big ideas, failures, and family values through the eyes of a disadvantaged group during an unfortunate time in history. As Martin Luther King said, Blacks are “...harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what

Walter is a very important character and impacts everybody by his actions and what he says and does. Walter changes a lot throughout the story. He begins to become very hostile and short tempered towards his family. He starts to lose all his family values and only starts to worry and care about the check that is coming in. He says, “did it come?” “will somebody please listen to me today!!!” This shows that he wants everyone to listen to his idea about what he wants to do with the money. While he wants this, he shows no care or regard to anyone else’s ideas or thoughts about it. The quotes show how selfish and rude he is, also it shows how he has lost of all his family’s values because he won’t even listen to anybody else.

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.

Walter’s characters unravels as the story begins and continues to deepen as the story continues. He begins to have an argument with his wife “Ruth”

This depicts that Walter is fed up of his overbearing wife trying to unnecessarily control things, and as a result he strolls through an alternative place in which things are much more satisfying. Furthermore, Walter’s daydreams imitate a caricature of himself opposite to how he really is in reality. For example, when Walter fantasizes of being a commander of a hydroplane through an intense storm, he is interrupted by his wife’s plea for him to drive slower. Here, Walter is dreaming of control which he lacks in his marriage and consequently, he puts himself in a dominating and strong-willing leadership role. Another key example is when Walter entered the parking lot through

Upon walking out of Krannert's production of "A Raisin in the Sun," an eerie silence drizzled about the audience as people murmured and slowly shuffled towards the exits. After witnessing such a powerful yet melancholy piece of theater work, words seemed inappropriate. For three hours, "A Raisin in the Sun" encompassed us with racial, economic, and social issues of the 1950s. Swirling portions of humor, disgrace, pride, and sadness into a smooth blend, the play developed many twists and turns that kept the audience and myself completely alert. Throughout the three acts I could feel the audience, as well as myself, totally devoting themselves to the play. But after taking a step back, the play proved to

Following Walter losing the money, she shows, for a rare moment, significant anger and disappointment in Walter, going as far as to strike him repeatedly in rage and compare him to his hard-working father, “I seen ... him ... night after night ... come in ... and look at that rug ... and then look at me ...

At the opening of the play, the audience empathizes with the emotions associated with those of Walter Lee’s. As the audience can see, Walter Lee feels trapped. He’s trapped from being able to accomplish his life goal of providing for his family, and he feels trapped by his family because he claims that, in a way, they’re holding him back. Walter Lee feels as if he cannot provide, and he is growing tired of it; “Me, the boy, the way we live in this beat-up hole. Everything.” (32) In addition to being sick of the living conditions that he is responsible for, Walter Lee is frustrated that his own wife doesn’t support his dreams for the future. “Man say to his woman, ‘I got a dream.’ She says, ‘Eat your eggs…’” (33) This shows that Walter Lee has no support, and when he tries to gain the support of his wife again, the same thing happens, “Man say, ‘Help me to take a

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,

Another scene in which the character of Walt deals with the prejudices of ageist yet