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The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun
A raisin in the sun as an American dream
The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun
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“A Dream Deferred” Relation to A Raisin in the Sun
Throughout American history and even till now, people are able to overcome the numerous obstacles that life has thrown at them. Americans have gone to great extents to achieve many important accomplishments. These accomplishments have helped to shape the country. People move to American to achieve the American Dream. What exactly is the American Dream? It is the idea of having opportunities to succeed and own property, lead a satisfactory life with a healthy family, and freedom. However, in “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the American Dream is not as easily achieved for the main characters as compared to the whites in that area. During
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the time of both of these stories, America’s population of whites thought of themselves as superior to the inferior group of people, the blacks. Walter Lee Younger, one of the main characters in A Raisin in the Sun, has a dream similar to the American Dream.
He dreams of being able to own a liquor store and being financially stable enough to provide for his family. However, at the beginning of the story, the reader learns that Walter is a desperate man and chained into poverty. He is drawn into the idea that opening and running a liquor store with Bobo and Willy Harris will solve all his financial problems. With the accumulation of $10,000 from his father’s life insurance, he wants to use the money to buy an investment in the liquor store. “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…. Mama - look at me.” (Hansberry, 1959). He believes, with the prosperity from the liquor store, that he will be able to provide extravagant gifts for Ruth, his wife. Meanwhile, his mother does not approve of Walter’s decisions for buying an investment in the liquor store. As the story continues to go on, Walter realizes that he does not possess the required skills needed for the succession of one’s business. After he received some of the money from his father’s life insurance, he irresponsibly entrusts it into the hands of his buddies. From this point forward, everything is going downhill, and his dream has dried up. “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes, 1951). Self hatred allows Walter to not renounce his remaining self
esteem. Beneatha Younger, another main character in A Raisin in the Sun, is the most educated out of the entire Younger family. She speaks her beliefs in a household where her family has a hard time understanding her point of view. She attends college and dreams of becoming a doctor. During the time, it is rare for an African-American female to become a doctor. She believes it is to decide what she wants to do with her future. Walter, her brother, points out that everyone has to sacrifice something in order to support Beneatha for her medical schooling. “Well I do, all right? Thank everyone and forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all.” (Hansberry, 1959). She refuses to accept the idea of an African-American woman who accepts the indecisive role that society has thrown at them. She wants to be someone who is able to make a difference in this world, but will her dream come true? “Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?” (Hughes, 1951). Beneatha loves her mother dearly, even if their relationship is not always the best. She has her opinions and thinks of herself as superior to some of the others close to her. Lena Younger, the mother of Walter and Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun, is not the type of person to be obsessed with materialistic items. On the other hand, she wishes to spend her husband’s life insurance money to buy the family a house with a backyard where Travis is able to play and where she is able to tend to a garden. However, Walter does not approve of her decision and wants to use it to invest in a liquor store with his buddies. Therefore, Lena says “Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but he did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.” (Hansberry, 1959).
“Check coming today?” The Life Insurance check that Mama will soon be receiving is the source of all the dreams in the Younger family. A major argument that Lorraine Hansberry makes in her play A Raisin in the Sun is the importance of dreams. Dreams are what each member of the Younger family is driven by. Mama wants to have her own home in a nice part of town; she does not want her children growing up in a place with rats. Walter wants to have a successful business so he can surpass the poverty that has plagued his family. And Beneatha wants to get a good education, become a doctor, and marry a nice man. Dreams are especially important to the Younger family as they come from a poverty laden family and desire to live the “American Dream.” Every member of the Younger family has a dream but each one is different with a different view on what the true “American Dream” really is.
The American dream has been visualized and pursued by nearly everyone in this nation. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the Younger family that strived for the American dream. The members of the Younger family shared a dream of a better tomorrow. In order to reach that dream, however, they each took different routes, which typified the routes taken by different black Americans.
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.
Primarily, in A Raisin in the Sun Walter is an example of one struggling to achieve their dream or desire. Walter serves as the hero and villain of the play due to the actions he takes revolving his dream. “Walter, who firmly believes in the American Dream of economic independence, wants to own his own business, and a liquor store, because he despairs over what he perceives to be his inability to support the family and to provide for his son’s future” ( __ __ ). Walter’s dream is to be sole the provider for his household and give his family a better life. He plans by doing this through a liquor store investment with the insurance money given to Mama from Big Walters death. “In the play Walter loses much of the insurance money that he planned to invest on a liquor store to a con artist” ( ___ ___ ). Walter’s decision on investing in a liquor store turns out to be a horrific choice. In the play although Walter is regretfully deceived and looked down upon as a result of the liquor store ambition, he makes up for it by at the end finally reaching his manhood. During the time of the play the husband of the family is mainly the sole provider for the family. In the case of the play, Walters mother is the sole provider for the family. Walter strives to be the “man” of the house.“A job. (Looks at her) Mama, a job? I open and close car doors all day long. I drive a man around in his limousine 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. (Very quietly) Mama, I don’t know if I can make you understand” ( Hansberry , Pg.73). “Walter minimizes the position of a car driver because to him it diminishes his manhood and his sense of individual worth.
America, since its conception, has been known as the "promised land." America is where one goes to escape persecution or achieve a dream that would be hard or impossible to achieve in their current location. This is essentially the "American Dream." The American Dream is to be able to create a better life for yourself, or any life you want, no matter who you are or where you are from. Walter and Frederick have two very different approaches to their American Dream. Walter's drive for money consumes him and complicates his relationship with his family while Frederick's passion for reading made him a more intelligent slave. The lives of the two men had different outcomes, but followed the same ideal of the American Dream.
The American dream has been a tangible idea, greatly sought after by many over the course of American History. The dream has eluded many, to strive for achieving in America’s open markets, and become a self-made man from the sweat of one’s brow. The idea of become self-sufficient, and have limitless dreams that take one as far as they are willing to imagine is captured very differently from The Great Gatsby to A Raisin in the Sun. Both novels seem to have the American dream as their subject, but both end up having very different outcomes to how one achieves it, and if the dream is truly in existence, namely with the characters of Jay Gatsby and Walter Younger. The books mainly brushes upon the idea of what the American dream truly is, how one achieves the dream, and what the real fulfillment the dream encompasses.
The concept of the American Dream has always been that everyone wants something in life, no matter if it is wealth, education, financial stability, safety, or a decent standard of living. In addition, everyone will try to strive to get what they want. The American Dream, is said to be that everyone should try and get what they hope they can get in life. In the play A Raisin in the Sun the author Hansberry tells us about a family where each has an American Dream, and Hughes in the poem “ Let America be America Again “is telling us to let America be the America that was free for us to obtain The American Dream. Hansberry and Langston see America like as a place to find the dream desired, although they also see limitation to obtain the American Dream, such as poverty, freedom, inequality, racism and discrimination.
What is the AMERICAN DREAM? I concluded the matter of dreaming about life’s basics wants that are exclusive to North America. The American Dream is the following: Go to college, get a good job, and finally get your own family. If we think about it, the American Dream is indeed a UNIVERSAL DREAM. The concept of the American Dream is created by this value system. The American Dream is intended to be a way of life attainable to all Americans. Whatever maybe the case, the act of trying to escape reality and the result such an act brings, is evident throughout the three novels Jews without money, by Michael Gold, Street Corner Society by William Whyte, and Passing, by Nella Larsen. All three of these books confront the myth of the American Dream. The American Dream can either be a reality or a nightmare depending upon the cultural prejudices and availability of freedom. Individuals who are united through some common bond, which may be religion social status of color, create a group or class of people. While individuals are subject to racial prejudices, which often makes up upward mobility not possible. Without equal opportunities to move upwards within society, the American Dream is not attainable. But it is possible in cases where people are willing to sacrifice their heritage culture etc. Nella Larsen, show us through this novel, that if people want, they can achieve the American Dream, but they would have to ‘pay a price for it.’ This is especially true of Clare Kendry. Her passing is motivated by her desire to improve the conditions of her socioeconomic life. She is successful in achieving her American Dream, but in the end she does face the consequences of her actions. She manages to rise from being a poor girl to settling down in a well household. Using her white skin color and blond hair as commodities, she escapes the reality of her true character. She gained wealth and respect in the community through marrying an affluent successful white man. But the truth is that she paid the price of ‘passing’ because she couldn’t express who she was and her true identity in the fear of being ‘caught’ and then left aside abandoned from the ‘whites’ and the ‘black’ communities. In her case, her decision to ‘pass’ was self-initiated. Clare was afraid to face everyone, especially her husband, with her blackness.
In the United States there is an idea many pursue called the American dream, which differs from person to person. The American dream according to americanradioworks.publicradio.org is “a revolutionary notion: each person has the right to pursue happiness, and the freedom to strive for a better life through hard work and fair ambition”. Yet it has been said there is no real definition of American dream, instead it merely proves that it has an unconscious influence in American mentality (Ştiuliuc 1). The American dream is different for each person because everyone yearns for things that will they hope will in return make them happy. Whatever that may be, each person goes through different struggles to obtain what they want. According to Frederic Carpenter, the American dream “has never been defined exactly, and probably never can be. It is both too various and too vague” (3). The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse depicts the different interpretations on what the American dream actually is through the opinions and actions of Hector Esperanza, Efren Mendoza and Mrs. Calhoun.
In 1931 when the American Dream arose, Americans believed that the harder one worked, the more one would prosper (Meacham, 2012). In other words, they strongly believed that the American Dream was gaining a better, richer, happier life. Today, the American Dream is still hoping to earn a college degree, get a good job, buy a house, and start a family, but according to MetLife’s fifth annual survey, 41% of the respondents said it was about personal fulfillment, while most American’s say it is out of reach for many (White, ...
The idea of the American Dream still has truth in today's time, even if it is wealth, love, or
The American Dream is an idea that anyone can live in the United States through hard work and live happy successful lives. There are many obstacles that would stand in the way from achieving the American Dream. Fear, money and education/training, families changing in size, disability, race and gender, are some of the hurdles that many Americans face as they try to achieve the typical American Dream.
In Lorraine Hansberry's inspirational play A Raisin in the Sun, a working class African American family's life is turned upside down when death comes for their father. In this play, the main characters: Walter, Benetha, Ruth, and Mama(Lena), all dream of having a better life. Despite the living conditions that rule their lives, they each try to pursue the "American Dream." Although the "American Dream," is different for each character, by the end of the play and through many trials and tribulations; the Younger's come to realize who's dream is the most important.
With America actually being seen as the land of assurance, the American dream is usually associated with the freedom and opportunity of gaining prosperity, recognition, power, triumph, and contentment. On the surface, this dream appears virtually delighted, offering individuals the exceptional hope of accomplishing success despite of one’s race, religion, or family history. The American Dream is accurately what it seems to be the chance of perfect lying nearby the corner. However, the actual nature of this dream prohibit the pleasure of the victory one has earned, as the desire is always demanding one to work a slight harder and gain a slightly more.
When the term ‘American Dream’ was first mentioned in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, he described it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” (Clark). When Adams mentioned the term, it had much more of an idealistic meaning, rather than the materialistic meaning it has in modern society. At the time of it’s mention, the dream meant that prosperity was available to everyone. In the beginning, the American Dream simply promised a country in which people had the chance to work their way up through their own labor and hard work (Kiger). Throughout history, the basis of the dream has always been the same for each individual person. It