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A Raisin in the Sun Response Paper
The play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry talks about a poor African-American family living on the Southside of Chicago in the 1950s. The family gets an opportunity to escape from poverty when Lena Younger (Mama) receives a $10,000 insurance check when her husband dies. Her children, Walter and Beneatha, each have plans for the money, but a portion of the money is utilized as a down payment on the house in a white middle-class neighborhood. The rest of the money is given to Walter. With an end goal to increase the cash, Walter invests the cash and winds up losing every last bit of it. Notwithstanding how the family has lost the rest of the insurance cash and was informed that they would not be welcome in the White neighborhood by one of the neighbors, the family chooses to push ahead with their arrangements to move into the area (Hansberry p.2).
Every hardworking person’s dream is to see that it pays off in the end, and with the knowledge that we have the resources we need, anything we desire and work for is achievable. The character, Lena Younger or Mama, in her early 60s, is depicted as a beautiful, strong matriarch in the family. When the $10,000 life insurance check arrives in the mail, her children recognize her as the one in charge of the money and the family. Mama’s role as matriarch conflicts with Walter’s expectation of being the man of the house. She trusts, though, that a man should be the one running the family, which is why she shows her confidence in her son, Walter, to run the family. Mama explains that she and her husband fled the racialized violence of the south, trying to stay alive and give their children a better life. Despite the hardships she has experienced, Mama remains an optimist and buys a house to get her family out of their old rat-invested apartment.
In his mid-30s, Walter is not satisfied with how his life has turned out, as he works as a chauffeur for a rich white man. He wishes to be treated as the man in charge of the family and plans to use his mother’s money to invest in a liquor store, as he believes that it will give the family financial independence and improve his life and how people treat him. The play is driven in part by the gendered fight between Walter’s ambition and Mama’s role as the family matriarch. Walter is an intense young man that acts rather quickly and nervously with erratic speech. Walter does not dry up like a raisin in the sun but rather threatens to explode. He shows the most noteworthy change coming into manhood as the play comes to an end.
Beneatha, Walter’s younger sister, represent a new modern generation of independent African-American. She is smart, feminist, and interested in learning about their racial heritage. Beneatha desires to go to a medical school to help people, which conflicts with her brother’s ambition to open a liquor store. Her two suitors, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai, show different views of African-American distinctiveness. At the end of the play, Beneatha considers marrying Joseph and moving to Africa, which strengthens her character’s positive sense of African heritage.
Ruth Younger, Walter’s wife, is quite a laidback woman. She is not old but sags under the weight of a dreary life. She acts as a peacemaker during family differences. She respects Mama but also supports her husband’s need to be in charge. She works as a cleaner for a white family and doe much of her family chores. As the play progresses, she hopes for a better life. She becomes quite emotional when the prospect of moving to a white neighborhood is contemplated. She contemplates having an abortion because of the economic situation they are in, but in the end, she decides to keep the baby, which adds to the positive plot arc in the play.
Travis Younger, who is Walter and Ruth’s son, is a good-natured child. He sleeps on the couch and does not complain. He shows a desire to earn his own money. He is a responsible kid who helps with carrying groceries after school. Travis represents the sixth generation of youngsters and hope for the future. Overtly, big Walter’s death provides money and hope of legacy that set the play in motion, but the younger women recognize Mama as the matriarch. The women provide a backbone strength of the family and make most decisions without consulting men. Every character in the play is trying to make their lives better, one way or the other; some make it, and some, not so well, but at the end of the day, they all work towards a better life, and that is what matters.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Samuel French, Inc., 1984.