Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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,

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

Walter Lee is one of the main characters in the play called A Raisin In the Sun. In the play Walter shows signs of selfishness, anxiety, and bravery. In the first act of the play Walter is very concerned about the arrival of a check his mother is receiving because of her husband as part of her life Insurance. He wakes up in the morning and the first thing he asks his wife is if the check is coming in the next day. In the story Walter says, “Check coming today?”. The reason for his desperateness is because he wants to use the money the check provides to invest money in a liquor store he wants to start with two friends.

Walter Lee Younger a 35 year old man, who lives in a house with his Wife Ruth, Son Travis, Sister Beneatha, and Mother Lena. Walter is greedy, ambitious, and shallow. He obviously shows these characteristics during the play by the way he act towards his family and outsiders. For example, since Walter is unsatisfied with his life he takes it out on Ruth when she was simply just telling him to eat his eggs because they're going to get cold, “ This morning, I was lookin’ in the mirror and thinking about it… 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 to him is stories about how rich white people live.” Walter says selfishly to Ruth after ignoring what is saying. After Walter complains to Ruth about his life she simply says again to him again, “Eat your eggs, Walter.” He became very angry after hearing Ruth repeat this sentence a few times, jumps up, slams on the table and says, “DAMN MY EGGS-- DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS! This shows that if Walter is not happy then he will make sure that everyone in his family will know. Also, Working for a rich white man as a chauffeur, puts Walter down because he only wishes he could be the person in the back seat. “Honey, you never say nothing new. I listen to you every day, every night, and every morning, and you never say nothing new. So you would rather be Mr. Arnold than be his chauffeur. So-- I would rather be living in Buckingham

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 Lee, at the beginning of the play is hopeful to reach his dream. He expresses his excitement to Ruth and explains how his family’s life would be different if he was able to reach his dream. Walter talks

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 struggles in this play with not being able to make a good living to support his family. He feels as if the job he has now is lowly and only to serve another man. His pride in himself makes him want something more. “I open and close doors all day long. I drive a man around and I say, ‘Yes, sir; no, sir; very good, sir; shall I take the Drive, sir?’ Mama, that ain’t no kind of job… that ain’t nothing at all,” Walter tells mama this to explain how he feels about his job (Hansberry 73). In Act I Scene Two he tells Mama, “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy… Mama--look at me,” (Hansberry 73). He then goes on to explain how he can see a future for himself and his family, but right now it is a distant dream that he feels unable to accomplish unless he can start a business like the liquor store he has in mind. His hope in opening this store is to be able to get on his feet and make enough money to where his family isn’t struggling.

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's frustration festers and his anger turns inward towards his family who, in Walters eyes, do not understand him. Walter's family members do understand him and they also want to amass material dreams, but Walter's family members know that it is going to take work to get there.

Especially because each family member has strong opinions and characters. Walter hopes to perdue his dreams, while doing so he becomes very hostile, ambitious, and in the end prideful. At

For example, when Walter tries to show Mama the papers about purchasing a liquor store with Willy and Bobo, she says to him that she isn’t going to use the insurance money on a liquor store. In response, Walter bitterly says, “You ain’t looked at it and you don’t aim to speak on that again? You ain’t even looked at it and you have decided” (Hansberry 71), which demonstrates how Mama putting his dream off is really causing Walter a great deal of anguish, and he just can’t seem to let go of the dream. It’s always there like how a deferred dream can start to stink like rotten meat as stated in Harlem. Moreover, when Mama tells Walter that she used some of the insurance money to buy a new house, Walter feels like she “butchered up a dream of [his]” just like how a butcher cuts up meat (Hansberry 95), and this continues to demonstrate how his deferred dream is really stinking like rotten meat, a smell that simply won’t go away on its own.

Walter Lee Younger was a stubborn and selfish person. The only time Walter seems to get excited in the play is when there's talk of the $10,000 life insurance check that Walter will soon receive in the mail from his father’s death. His desire to buy the liquor store had outweighed the dreams of his family. Walter plans to use the money to invest in a liquor store with his "friend," Willy Harris. He sees this investment as an opportunity to be his own boss and to finally provide for his family the way he feels he should. His family tries to warn Walter about the dangers of

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,

Have you ever wanted to help the people you love to gain a better way of life? Then a dream pops into your head, and you think that’s it. This is how I’ll do it. Well that is the story of Walter Lee. The play, A Raisin in The Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry involves a black family who is faced with the challenges of racism, their financial status, and overall a high level of stress due to a recent death of the patriarch, Walters dad. The death of Walter’s dad brings the family deep sorrow but with every cloud there’s a silver lining and in this case it’s the 10,000 dollars of insurance money that will be given to Mama, the mother of Walter and Beneatha. Mama wants to use the money to buy a new house and make things easier for the family. Walter wants to use it to invest in a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to get into medical school. Walters American dream of gaining a more livable for his family is affected by his ambition, impulsiveness, and his drive to do good for his family.