Marina Triebenbacher 10/9/14 English Period 2 A Raisin in the Sun Analytical Paragraph Various people have different beliefs on the importance of having dreams The speaker in “Kitchenette Building,” by Gwendolyn Brooks and Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry both have contrasting views on the significance of dreams. In the poem “Kitchenette Building,” the speaker discusses how arduous it is for a dream to survive the hardships and harsh realities of life in a cramped kitchenette …show more content…
“We wonder. But not well! Not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, we think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it” (Brooks 11-13). The speaker indicates that even if someone has a dream, they cannot really consider pursuing it, for it is not as important as the basic necessities. Instead, they replace the dream with a practical desire: getting into the bath before the water becomes cold. This demonstrates that the speaker believes that it is essential to take care of basic human needs before fantasizing about unrealistic ideas. Beneatha, on the other hand, is determined to accomplish her dream of becoming a doctor. Unlike the speaker in “Kitchenette Building,” Beneatha strives for a dream that seems far-fetched. She is not satisfied with just the basic needs, so she yearns to do something important with her life. In fact, one of her nicknames is “One for Whom Bread-Food-Is Not Enough” (Hansberry 65). Unlike the speaker of the poem, Beneatha refuses to let her dream die just because of her family’s unfortunate financial situation. Furthermore, Beneatha’s ambition does not fit into the gender stereotypes of the time period. “Ain’t many girls who decide ‘to be a doctor’”
Everyone has a dream or aspiration that they wish to attain in the future. However, some people are faced with hardships that interrupt their desires. In Gwendolyn Brooks’ optimistic poem, “Kitchenette Building,” she utilizes metaphors, rich imagery, and contradictions to explore the relationship between challenging reality and dreams and to argue the notion that impecunious people can still have hopes. Tension can arise throughout the poem because readers often interpret this poem as a story that describes the rejection of dreams because of the harsh pressures of reality.
Beneatha Younger’s dreams to be a doctor often contradict what other people think is best for her, showing that she is willing to take risks. Her relationship with George becomes tense when he discovers that she aspires to become a doctor. This is shown when he says “As for myself I, want a nice... simple... sophisticated girl... not a poet, OK?” George does not like the change that Beneatha advocates for. Another instance, when he says “It’s simple. You read books, to learn facts, to get grades, to pass the course, to get a degree. That’s all,
These days, our youth is highly encouraged to do something with their lives. For example, joining clubs or sports programs gives us new skills and improves our life quality tremendously. The youth are told attempting new activities will benefit them when they grow up, so we shouldn’t respond to Beneatha’s attitude about life negatively. She is a woman who was born in the wrong time period who portrays the gender roles for women we have today, rather than traditional women in the 1950’s. Unfortunately, Beneatha gets mocked by her family for being curious and for living vivaciously. Even though Beneatha flits around and explores new fields often, it would go against our nature not to be inquisitive. Throughout the play, Beneatha presents herself as self centered,selfish and arrogant, but being self centered actually will benefit her.
Dreams are a place in one’s mind where there is freedom to believe, say, or do what ever one chooses. Whether it be a place where one can compose a fantasy to escape reality or a place to establish a new real life. Dreams or illusions can often be perceived incorrectly and thought to be part of real life until one is awaken from the fantasy and runs straight into the harsh reality of one’s own life. The idea that dreams and illusions remove the characters from their actuality to a fantasy can be noticed in the stories Araby by James Joyce and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates. Within these two short stories, both authors portray the theme that what is imagined in ones head can be shattered by a harsh reality through
Thomas Moore, the irish poet, once wrote, “True conversation is an interpenetration of worlds, a genuine intercourse of souls, which doesn't have to be self-consciously profound but does have to touch matters of concern to the soul.” This quote relates to a theme of dreams, because communication is a key part of making dreams come true. Setting goals, whether they are to be achieved or not, are the first steps to success. Without goals, one will have no sense of direction, and would just wander around mindlessly. Also if there is nothing to work towards in life, then what is the point? In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Lennie, George, and Crooks all had dreams in their lives, but due to social and economic obstacles, the probability of their dreams coming true was lower.
Dreams are key motivations towards a better future. Not just the ones that are conceived during the late hours of the night, but the ones that are thought of when asked about what could be in the future even when it is not likely that one’s dream is to come true. Of Mice and Men demonstrates through characters like George, Lennie, Candy, Crooks and Curley's Wife that sometimes dreams are not always meant to be attained, but still meant to be strived for.
In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, majority of the characters have dreams. Many of the dreams that reveal in the stories are unrealistic to come to a reality, considering where they come from, their backgrounds, and the environment around them. In The House on Mango Street, the main character Esperanza struggles to find her true identity and wishes she was a grown up making her own decisions and experiencing new things. While in Raisin in the Sun, Walter thinks he has everything under control, and only does what is best for him, not what is best for his family. In both The House on Mango Street and Raisin in the Sun, the authors reveal that maturity begins when you have to make
That’s what Beneatha Younger began to think towards the end of the book when Walter her older brother lost Mama’s life insurance money. She began to think this for a couple of reasons. One reason is because of how she realized it would take to long too become a doctor and wouldn’t be making money for a while and the Younger family needed her to be making money now. Also George one of her boyfriends at the time wasn’t fully on board with her becoming a doctor. A reason for why he wasn’t on board with this was because of how he felt that she didn’t need to be working and when they were to have kids who would look after them, and also how it wasn’t very common for girls to work at that time. One last reason why Beneatha started to doubt herself and give up on her dream is because of how she no longer believes that she can help people and the feeling she used to have just wasn’t there anymore. Instead of feeling optimistic about demanding equality for African-Americans and freeing them from the French and English colonizers, she now frets about basic human misery. Never-ending human misery demoralizes her, and she no longer sees a reason to fight against it. Those are a couple of the reasons why Beneatha begins to doubt herself on give up her lifelong dream of becoming a
A dream is defined as contemplating the possibility of doing something or an idea for something for the future. Dreams are aspirations, hopes, and expectations for the future. Dreams do not have a level of value, they are immeasurable. Simple dreams can be just as valuable as gigantic ones. They may be different in society as well. Who's to say that one person's dream is more valuable than another person's? We get our notions of our dreams through many different ways like family friends, media, and many more. One way we encounter new dreams happens to be what we read in literature. In Walters family in ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ the young Dill in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ the black boy who was killed because of his race in ‘The Death of Emmett Till,’ and the examples of ‘the creed’ displayed in ‘American Denial,’ a reader is shown that dreams are all equal despite the fact that individuals think theirs have more value than others.
Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor. She believes that her dream was deferred when she was born since she is coloured and a female. Although she fights this, her dream is deferred even more when Walter looses the money which she needed to get into medical school.
Walter Younger, Beneatha’s brother, always told her “go be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be quiet…” (Hansberry 28), but Beneatha wanted to become a doctor (Brubaker 1). A traditional woman was expected to get married and should be more concerned with her family than her education (Brubaker 1). Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor is dissimilar from the stereotypical female in the 1950’s (Brubaker 1). Beneatha believes education is the way to success (Brubaker 1). Beneatha does not want to rely on her boyfriend, George Murchison, a wealthy black man, and wants to wait to get married (Brubaker 1). George also discouraged Beneatha for her dream. He “wants a nice—simple—sophisticated girl” (Hansberry 146) and not a girl who wants to be different. He believed she should have fulfilled the stereotype when she wanted to achieve her dream. Finally, Asagai, a close friend of Beneatha’s, demoralizes her for being a woman. He said, “I can take women only just so seriously” (Hansberry 51). Even though Asagai encourages Beneatha about becoming a doctor, he still doesn’t respect her as he would another man. Beneatha’s dream seems impossible to others, but she remains independent and determined.
Although Langston Hughes’s poem “A Dream Deferred” may look small and basic at first glance, there are many hidden meanings significant to the poem’s important meaning. First of all, what one may initially notice is the odd format of the poem. One line is essentially asking the question of “what happens to a dream deferred?” and the lines below it, all indented, offer some possible explanations. Finally, this poem closes off with one final possible answer in italics questioning whether the dream deferred “explodes”. When offering possible explanations, Hughes uses similes when describing all his explanations aside from the last one. Furthermore, all the similes provided compare the explanation of what happens to a dream deferred to food. This is done because activities such as cooking and eating are part of an everyday experience. Ultimately, it is Hughes’s goal here to help the reader see that staying on track with one’s dreams is just as essential to life as cooking or eating. Just like if people do not eat, failing to follow one’s dreams will lead life to be unsatisfying. In short, Hughes’s goal in this poem is to have his readers see the importance of keeping your dreams alive and not abandoning them. In fact, Hughes’s poem is commonly associated with Harlem since the dream for Harlem had been progressing just fine until the Great Depression when chaos ensued and people forgot what the dream for Harlem had been. Hughes uses this poem as a wake-up call to alert the people of Harlem (and even people in general) that if they continue to delay their dreams, their quality of life will worsen and there will never be any satisfaction. The speaker of this poem appears as if it is an intelligent professor who challenges hi...
Langston Hughes’ poem “Dreams” discusses the value of having goals and aspirations. The poem is relatively short and uses metaphors to express such utter importance of dreams. In the first stanza Hughes’ implies that a life without dreams is useless and may as well not even exist. The whole of a bird’s existence is to be able to use its’ wings to fly, just like a human’s life only has a purpose to exist if there are dreams to give it meaning. The second stanza contains another metaphor about comparing having no dreams to living an empty life. A field with nothing but snow, has no use in life except to just be there. The authors use of metaphors comparing lifeless nature to a life without dreams is extremely effective in getting the point across. After reading the entirety of the poem, it is clear that Hughes’ purpose is to convey the importance of having dreams and never letting them go, for without dreams, life is not worth living.
A dream or aspiration is a desire that people wish to achieve in their life just as badly as they want to breathe. There are many human beings all over the world chasing their ambition, although it’s not easy. Many people give up early on their dreams and fail to succeed once things become too difficult. However, individuals that fail to succeed do not live their dreams, they live their fears. These individuals are afraid of failure, hope, themselves, and unfortunately their dream becomes impossible to pursue. On the other hand, the individuals that become successful are the people who believe in themselves because when life knocks a dreamer down they must get right back up and continue to strive to reach their full potential. The novel The
" Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind," once sang Mick Jagger in "Ruby Tuesday." Dreams are viewed different but they don't always come true. In the novels Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and the novel Out of the dust by Karen Hesse, dreams are viewed in different perspectives. John Stenbeck is telling you to strive for your goals and to work towards them because your dreams can get deferred and destroyed. When the opinion of Hansberry is implying that dreams can come true if you try hard, even if you're going through tough times. Karen Hesse is reiterating that you should not let anything interfere with accomplishing your goals.