Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

In the play Walter Lee Younger Junior is a 35-year protagonist who can't provide or stand up to be the man to his family. Walter Lee Younger Junior suffered so hard and he was tired of they way him and his family were living in poverty and he's trying to take away poverty from his family and try to figure out a new, and better ways to secure its economic prosperity. Walter is going insane due to all

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,

Walter is tired of not being able to properly provide for his family and take on the role of man of the house. He wants the best for his family, and especially for his son Travis. In his current state though, all he can give to his family are “stories about how rich white people live” (Hansberry, 34),. This frustrates him as he is over thirty, yet has “a boy who sleeps in the living room” (Hansberry, 34), and can barely provide for his family. This is similar to the first stanza of “Sympathy”, where the caged bird feels all the beauty of freedom but can never fully experience it. Walter, like the bird is trapped and is tauntingly reminded of this daily.

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 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 insignificant. There are many obstacles in the way of Walter?s dream of opening a liquor store, as he tries to explain to his wife, Ruth, about what he has to do, ?Baby, don?t nothing happen for you in this world ?less you pay somebody off!?(Hansberry 33) Walter's determination to open the liquor store can be viewed as means to an end to his family?s hardships.

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

Walter presumes that ‘it’s always money’ and how Mama can’t use it in the right way. Walter later responds that ‘money is life,’ explaining to Mama that success is now defined by how much money one has. This conversation takes place early in the play and reveals Mama’s and Walters economic struggles. However we see a turn of events when Walter plans to accept Mr. Lindner’s offer. Walter is not concerned with the degrading implications of the business deal; it is simply a way to recover some of the lot money. However, Hansberry challenges Walter’s crude interpretation of the American Dream by forcing him to actually carry out the transaction in front of his son. Walter’s inability to deal with Mr. Linder marks a significant revision of his interpretation of the American Dream. Walter comes to a realisation that money is not everything and how family is so much more valuable. During the late 1950’s money was defined as one of the main characteristics of a man, and who that man will become. Walters dream is to obtain enough money to provide enough for his family, this dream of his suggests how his American Dream is also vanished, as money was an immense part of this dream of his. Wily Loman is the complete opposite; he fails to understand that there is so much more to becoming successful than being rich. The failure to understand this concept brought him to a sudden death. Willy is like every

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 for the key ingredient that will make his life blissful. His

    The American Dream, although different for each of us, is what we all aspire to achieve. In Lorraine Hansberry's, play, A Raisin in the Sun, each member of the Younger family desperately hopes for their own opportunity to achieve the American Dream. The American Dream to the Younger family is to own a home, but beyond that, to Walter Younger, it is to be accepted by white society.

Walter starts to have a mental breakdown after realizing that, not only did he lose his chance of fulfilling his dreams, he’s eradicated his sisters dreams and lost over half of his father’s earnings. The downfall of Walter’s dreams correlates with Hughes’ Harlem. Hughes asks, “‘Or fester like a sore - / And then run?’” (Hughes 4 / 5).

Rough Draft Having a solid mother son relationship when growing up is a vital part in child development. However, these relationships varies between families. The mothers and sons in the plays A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, and Death of Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, demonstrate how these relationships vary from family to family. Linda and Biff, and Ruth and Travis are the mothers and sons in the plays.

A Raisin in the sun is written by Lorraine Hansberry. Discrimination based on color (black and white) or identity is one of the important theme of the play. Walter and Lena (Mama) play an important role in the play. It is said that a person’s life is controlled not so much by his circumstances as by how he responds to those circumstances. This truth is illustrated in the play “A Raisin in the Sun” by two main characters - Lena and Walter.

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,

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

In the play “ A Raisin In The Sun” family and dreams collide various times. The Younger’s,already living a tough life,made dreams that seemed so far apart and impossible. Walter, Beneatha and Ruth tried to make their dreams true so they can provide for themselves and family. But the American Dream they have in mind maybe a long shot away for their family and living issues.