literary analysis rough draft
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Anisha Hossain Megha
Lit 2000
Danielle Mercier
Intro to Literature
A Raisin in the Sun
Literary Analysis Essay
Introduction:
Even though Walter was the protagonist of the play, I grasped his character to be more of an
antagonistic one and he contributed to the play, in my perspective, as more of a villain.
In this literary analysis of 'A Raisin in the Sun', I will focus on Walter and his character and how
he contributed to the play, themes, and the overall importance of money throughout the acts.
There will also be an emphasis on critical literary clues throughout the play, exploring central
themes such as the Mama and her plant, and whether the ending was cheerful and beneficial to
the family.
Walter acts as the primary protagonist more than any other character, as his dreams and struggles
to realize them drive much of the action in the family. However, in my perspective, he felt like
the play's foe: he became more and more intolerable as the play moved forward. Walter Lee had
already lost his family's money by the time the play reaches the climax, where he is on the floor
shaking and crying in agony because he just gave his family's money to a scam artist and would
even go as far as begging Lindner which will just bring down his family’s pride. He looked
pathetic, and Beneatha's assessment of his character as a 'toothless rat' seemed more befitting of
him.
The entire play is about postponing dreams: the title is from a Langston Hughes poem that says a
dream deferred withers like a raisin in the sun. Black ambition—their dreams—are the essential
thing to Hansberry. In the 1950s, black Americans' aspirations were to be ignored or flatly
rejected. They pursue the dream by staying together as a family and moving into this new home
with a backyard rather than letting it die. The themes and terms in the play, along with dreams,
dignity and pride, racial discrimination, gender and feminism and money. Furthermore, both
assimilation into white society (represented by George) and rejection of white culture and
recovery of the African tradition (represented by Asagai) are significant themes in the play.
Points
1.
Walter Lee Younger and his character
1.1
His introduction into the play and connection to themes
His first appearance is in ACT 1 Scene 1 when he enters from his bedroom into the living room
and immediately mentions the check.
The family's preoccupation with money is highlighted by Walter's ready reference to the
upcoming "check." Ruth's complaints about her son's makeshift bedroom are also directly related
to the family's tight finances. Walter's remark about "colored" women reflect his insecurities
about his shaky sense of manhood and the ways in which hardship can cause people to blame
each other. Unable to bear the loss of dignity resulting from rejecting his son's request, Walter
gives Travis a dollar which is more than he can afford. Walter pleads with his wife to support
him in his dream of opening a liquor store so that he can provide a secure financial life for his
family. When Ruth worries about such an investment's safety, Walter lashes out at African
American women in general, redirecting his concerns to his wife and blaming her for his failures
as a male provider.
'Little attention has been given to how Black women countered surveillance to protect their
families in their own homes. Returning to Hansberry's
A Raisin in the Sun
(1958), a play that has
often been seen as upholding conservative gender ideologies… I argue that revealing the Black
housewife's responses to surveillance shows how the domestic sphere is essentially linked to the
public sphere (Kiser, November 2020)' Walter's behavior towards Ruth and his comments,
especially about women of color, surface a racial and gender discrimination as we can see from
mentioned by Kelsey in the article. Walter considers the women throughout his life to be his
main adversaries. He believes that his wife, Ruth, prevents him from breaking free from his
dead-end low-skilled job and building a better life for himself.
1.2
Walter’s realization and self-reflection at the end
During his second conversation with Linder, Walter reaffirms his and the family's pride in a
hugely transformative moment. The realization he went through was too late and should have
taken place in an earlier timeline.
Dignity, a central character in the Younger household, is a unifying factor throughout the play.
Walter's pained impersonation of an African American stereotype represents his complete loss of
dignity and demonstrates the lengths he will go to obtain Lindner's money. Walter declares his
manhood but acts immaturely and cowardly. He resents the fact that, as an African American
man in mid-century Chicago, he cannot financially fulfil the mainstream male role of providing
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for his family. By mentioning the six generations of his family living in America, he asserts that
he is as American as Lindner. He also sees the house as the completion of his father's dream, and
thus moving to the house is something achieved rather than handed down. Walter's remark that
the family will not "fight no causes" stretches the family from more drastic civil rights activists.
Walter claims that the family will be great neighbors to the white people of Clybourne Park, but
he also claims they have the right to be those white people's neighbors.
Is Walter's final act in the play meant to be morally rebuilding? While he could not undo the
shame, he had brought on his household by having to accept Mr. Lindner's shameful offer, Walter
at least has a chance to decrease the tangible effects of his actions, which he also blew (initially
the way he was planning to beg for money was also not acceptable in my eyes and there were
many alternative pathways that he could have chosen to do so). It could be the period, the
family's race, or something else that causes the perception of right and wrong to be completely
different. It is essential to understand the play's context (on the cusp of the civil rights
and women's movements, and in the midst of white flight from the cities to the suburbs). As
observed by John Davis, Hansberry seems to be aware that writing for a non-black market,
which is most often the object of black writers' protest, must be such that audiences "applaud the
very protest directed towards them" (Davis 1960)
2.
Mama as an alternative protagonist
2.1.
Mama’s plant and her relationship to it
Mama is a stock character representing the classic African American lady of the time. Despite
her being plain, her character is strengthened by her consistent faith and loyalty. More notably,
she is the plant's caretaker. The plant is outside initially as if it is a distant dream, taken in only
for the small amount of sustenance required to keep it alive. Mama brings it inside when the
family is packed and ready to move, as if the dream seems almost fulfilled. However, when
Walter gets scammed, the plant comes back outside, like a forgotten dream. It is crucial to
remember that it survives, and Mama always tends to it tenaciously, just as she does her dream.
Mama “continues to have faith in her plant, because she recognizes the plant’s stubbornness to
grow” (Thompson).
2.2.
Her decision on how the money should be used
Lena was also partly at fault for the disheveled state of her family. She was the one who
disrupted her family three times, first by letting Walter touch the wealth in the first place, then by
dissuading Ruth from having an abortion when they couldn't manage another baby, and finally
by forcing Travis to remain in the room when his father was about to belittle himself to save the
family. If only she had put her foot down on how the insurance money should have been spent
than the consequences due to Walter’s stubbornness could have been prevented.
‘Despite the history of enslavement, lynching, and Jim Crow, African Americans have a history
in the South that extends well beyond abuse and subjection, and Hansberry, in her canonical play,
works to reclaim that history for the Younger family and, by extension, her audience.
Understanding the way Hansberry constructs Southern history as a usable past in which to root
the family’s identity is not only useful for those interested in Southern and African American
literature, but also helps readers more fully comprehend the character of Mama, who has recently
been categorized as narrow-minded or tyrannical (Murray, 2015).’
3.
The ending to the play
3.1
What did it signify
Near the end of the play, the Youngers show that they value family unity and dignity over
financial security. However, with everyone extended to their breaking point and Ruth being
pregnant, the family may not be able to bounce back in the event of a crisis or other setback. The
circumstances of their life on Chicago's South Side depend primarily on the spirits of the
Youngers, a working-class family aspiring for social mobility. The move into them meant they
were progressing.
3.2
Was it a happy ending?
I get the perception that the play's conclusion is intended initially to be somewhat happy.
Indeed bittersweet, but it is not hopeful. All I could think was since all the insurance money is
lost, how will the family pay the mortgage on the house and are they safe in a neighborhood they
are not even welcome in? That ending tries to showcase that it is a happy one and that the family
has won by being able to move into the white neighborhood, which set down a sort of equality as
now African Americans could live in the same place white people could. However, it felt more
like a reaction due to trauma caused by racial discrimination and slavery, as mentioned by
Sumaya Haj.
'African American collective trauma was caused by slavery and its aftermath, as millions of
people were shipped from Africa to America in what is called the Middle Passage, where they
suffered from different kinds of psychological and physical torture (Haj, 2021).'
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Conclusion:
Mama's dream is fulfilled by moving into the house. She will finally have the chance to grow her
long-desired garden. On the other hand, moving into the house ruins Beneatha and Walter's
dream. Beneatha will most likely be unable to attend medical school now that the funds have
been depleted. She will have to find another way to make money, or she will end up in the same
situation as the other family members, which is unfortunate. Walter's dream vanishes because he
will seldom have the same amount of money to reinvest. I hope that if he decides to invest
money in the future, he will do so with greater caution. Because the story was set in the 1950s,
getting slapped for committing blasphemy in front of your mother was not unusual. Even in a
modern context, what Beneatha refers to as tyranny is simply a matriarch enforcing a "my house,
my rules" policy, minus the physical blows, of course. It is not ideal, but it is not a terrible
injustice. The fact that she is anything but thankful is bound to irritate the rest of the family,
which is part of the play's appeal. It is simply a brutal depiction of a black American family with
flawed, realistic characters.
As a social device, the play has aged poorly. Most of your annoyances stem from social norms
you do not understand because so much has changed or been swept under the rug since the late
1950s. In 1959, the play was written. Everyone referred to African Americans as Negroes.
Because there had been almost no significant two-way cultural exchange at the time, very few
whites could identify with anything in the black community.
References and Citations:
Kiser, Kelsey. “The Domestic Sphere as Counter-Surveillance in Lorraine Hansberry’s A
Raisin in the Sun.” Modern Drama, vol. 63, no. 4, 2020, pp. 435–54,
https://doi.org/10.3138/md.63.4.1069
.
Thompson, Michelle. “A Raisin in the Sun: Mama’s Plant.”
AAS-209 (3) Survey in
African American Literature
. Princeton University. 4 April 2007. Web. 2 June 2011.
https://blogs.princeton.edu//AAS-209-3/2007/03/a_raisin_in_the_sun_mamas_plan.html
Čerče, Danica. “Race and Politics in the Twentieth-Century Black American Play:
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Neohelicon (Budapest), vol. 46, no. 1, 2019,
pp. 227–39,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-018-0464-7
.
Murray, William. “The Roof of a Southern Home: A Reimagined and Usable South in
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 1-2,
2015, pp. 277–94,
https://doi.org/10.1353/mss.2015.0033
.
Haj, Sumaya. “The (Ir)Representability of the Belated Traumatic Wound in Lorraine
Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 53, no. 1, 2022, pp. 45–
59,
https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347211047877
.