Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Everyday people chase their dreams and some succeed while others do not. For those who do not reach their dreams a lesson is learned. In Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin In The Sun, we read that the Younger family is a low income family that faces racism and discrimination everyday and the only thing that is keeping them going is the hope that one day they will reach their dreams and create a better future for their children. In Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, she uses the Younger family to show that as individuals strive to reach their dreams they often disregard the aspirations of others, but they may eventually learn to support one another in attempt to better their lives.

In the play, Walter Younger is enthusiastic to buy …show more content…

Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, Walter constantly disregards his family's dreams to chase his own ambitions. When Beneatha explains that she wants to become a doctor, Walter criticizes her and says that it is unachieveable for her, Beneatha (Dropping to her knees) says, “Well – I do – all right? – thank everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all! (Pursuing him on her knees across the floor) FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!” (Hansberry, 497). As you can see Beneatha is being sarcastic in saying how her dreams are indeed achievable by saying, “... Forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all...”. In addition to Beneatha being sarcastic, she is also mocking Walter for risking a large increment of money on a liquor store that he believes is more successful than being a doctor. Walter simply ignores …show more content…

Despite the arrogance throughout A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger family eventually learns to support each other in an attempt to better their lives. Walter learns his lesson by swallowing his pride and dropping his dreams to own a liquor store to create a dream that would benefit his family’s life. Beneatha learns that critiquing other people’s dreams because she can not achieve her own is counter productive and decides to become a doctor in Africa, while supporting Asagai’s dream of saving Africa. All together, the Younger family learns that the next generation of African Americans will believe that they cannot dream or aspire to great things because of the environment of oppression that surrounds them. Even if they do dare to dream. Without protesting and fighting against discrimination and oppression nothing will change, and change begins with a family banding

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