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Critical research on a raisin in the sun
Critical research on a raisin in the sun
Literary Analysis of Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
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Walter Younger is passionate and ambitious about his dreams. However, as the play progresses he becomes more desperate because he is desperate to escape poverty, and he feels that his business idea will solve all their economic and social problems. After receiving the $10,000 life insurance check, he has the dream of opening a liquor store with the money. However, Mama’s objects the idea of investing in liquor because of her religious objections, and refuses to give them the money. His dream becomes A Raisin in the Sun when he decides to trust Willy Harris with part of the insurance money, but he takes his money and runs. When Walter finds out the news from Bobo, he knows “THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF [his] FATHER’S FLESH “ (Act 2, Scene 3), and immediately realizes his mistake. After this crucial mistake is turns to self-hatred, and almost accepts Lindner's offer in buying their house. However, he looks to Travis, and cannot …show more content…
She demands respect within the family and wants them to take pride in their dreams. However, she rejects Walter’s dream of investing in the liquor store because of her religious objections. Additionally, she feels that dreams are more important than wealth, and she is the complete opposite of being materialistic. Mama takes pride in herself and her family, and often has conflicts with Walter as she feels “it makes a difference in a man when he can walk on floors that belong to him” (Act 2, Scene 1) as Walter opinions are different. Ultimately, Mama’s dream is to have a happy family and improving their living conditions by living in a better place. However, her dream becomes A Raisin in the Sun, when Walter spends the remaining insurance money on the liquor store, but it gets stolen. This terrible decision ultimately splits up the family’s happiness, as much of the family is angry with Walter. Furthermore, Mama loses the the extra insurance, but still gets a new place to live with her
Mama talks to Walter about her fears of the family falling apart. This is the reason she bought the house and she wants him to understand. Walter doesn't understand and gets angry. "What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine - you - who always talking 'bout your children's dreams..." Walter is so obsessive over money that he yells at his mom for not giving him all of it. He doesn't know that what his mom is doing is for the family. He thinks that having money will make the family happy, when in reality the family doesn't need anymore than what they have to be happy.
Walter, distraught after Mama had denounced his ambition to run a liquor store, had skipped work for three days, borrowing Willy Harris's car to drive around the city. Mama, seeing Walter so defeated, decided to entrust the remaining 6,500 dollars of her 10,000 dollar check to him, saying, "It ain't much, but it's all I got in the world and I'm putting it in your hands." (Hansberry,) Having incessantly denied Walter's dream,
Mama only spent $3,500 out of the $10,000 from the insurance check, she decides to give Walter the leftover money, so he could “be the head of this family from now on” (107). Walter takes this matter upon himself and decides to “make a transaction” (108) that will “change our lives” (108). Walter then, takes all the money he is given by Mama and “never went to the bank at all” (129), he then gives all of the $6,500 to Willy Harris, who was trusted by both men, left with all of Walter and Bobo’s money. Mama, who is very upset by this, hits Walter for giving all the money away. Mama then turns to God for “strength” (130). Mama is a Christian woman and, despite her struggles, remains faithful.
Walter lives with his mother, sister, wife and child Travis. After the receival of a life insurance check from the deceased Walter Lee Senior, Mama makes a decision to give it to Walter to make him feel like the man of the house. She places endless trust into her son; she gives him the money that is needed for his sisters school, and the house payments. She has high hopes Walter would not let her down by the use of it for something that goes against her values. Unfortunately, as he receives the money one can see how hastily he works to use it for a meer liquor store as he confesses his wrongdoings: “Mama… I never went to the bank at all… It’s all gone.” (Hansberry 129). Prior to this moment, Mama had asked Walter to
“Mama (To Walter) Son- (She goes to him, bends down to him, talks to his bent head) Son… Is it gone? Son, I gave you sixty-five hundred dollars. Is it gone? All of it? Beneatha’s money too?”(Act 2 Scene 3 Pg. 129). Mama told him that she did not want her late husband’s hard earned money to go into a liquor store. Walter did not listen; therefore, he was held responsible and Mama punished him by beating him( pg.129). She further makes him face the consequences by telling him that he got them into this mess, and as head of the family he needs to get the family out of this situation but not at the cost of the families pride (
Even in today?s world, children are very susceptible. Walter displays a selfless characteristic which becomes overshadowed by unwise decisions later in the play. In one particular scene, his son Travis asked both parents for money. Walter acts out of pride by giving Travis his last pocket change. This symbolizes Walter's willingness to be a moral father.
To start off, Walter’s obsession with money is going to cost him a lot since it is the only thing he cares about. In the beginning, Walter starts out by only caring only about himself, but towards the end, he starts to care for everyone else as well. This shows that Walter is a selfish person. As Walter Lee states to Ruth, “Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be ‘bout thirty thousand, see” is the dream that Walter Lee has for himself (Hansberry 33). Walter wants the money that the Younger family is getting from the insurance company to buy the liquor store. He thinks that the liquor store will make them rich and the family would not have to struggle anymore. At the end, Walter changes his whole point of view towards the insurance money. Walter declares to Mr....
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.
Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, centers on an African American family in the late 1950s. Hansberry directs her work towards specifically the struggles faced by African Americans during the late 1950s. Through the dialogue and actions of her characters, she encourages not only a sense of pride in heritage, but a national and self-pride in African Americans as well.
Living in a society where the fulfillment of dreams is based upon material wealth, the Younger family strives to overcome their hardships as they search for happiness. As money has never been a way of life for the family, the insurance check's arrival brings each person to see the chance that their own dreams can become reality. Whether in taking a risk through buying a "little liquor store" as Walter wishes to do or in -"[wanting] to cure" as Beneatha dreams, the desires of the family depend upon the fate of Mama's check. In the mind of Walter Lee Younger, the check is the pinnacle of all, dominating his thoughts, as he does not wait a second before "asking about money "without" a Christian greeting." He cannot see beyond the fact that he "[wants] so many things" and that only their recently acquired money can bring them about. The idea of money and being able to hold it "in [his] hands" blinds him from the evils of society, as he cannot see that the Willy Harris's of the world will steal a person's "life" without a word to anyone. When money becomes nothing but an illusion, Walter is forced to rethink his values and his family's future, realizing that there is more to living that possessing material riches.
In the book A Raisin in the Sun, the time period is set in 1955. A time in America where African Americans still dealt with a constant struggle between them and the rest of the country. It touches on subjects that were very sensitive especially at the time the work was released. Even though the setting of the book was in the north, Lorraine Hansberry seemed to want to show that things weren’t that much better in the north than they were in the south at that time. Segregation was still being implemented in the law system, and there was a missing sense of equality among everyone. It shows that Lorraine Hansberry took what was going on around her environment and portrayed those situations into her work. The three events listed include Rosa Parks
Mama’s dreams were first deferred when she moved into the small apartment that the Youngers family stay in through out most of the play. She became too busy that she couldn’t accomplish her dream. She also could not for fill her dreams since she did not have enough money to do so. Her dreams were even more shattered with the death of her husband, but when she got the money from her husband’s death her dreams then became a reality again. Mama wants Travis to be happy and play in the garden but she cannot do this since they live in a dirty ghetto.
Each of the characters in A Raisin in the Sun has a dream for which they base their whole happiness and livelihood on attaining. However, the character of Lena Younger, or Mama, differs from the other members of her family. Time after time, Mama postpones her dream of owning a house and garden to perpetuate the dreams of her family members. Finally, when Mama receives the $10,000 insurance check, she feels that her dream can become reality, and purchases a house in Clybourned Park. Her dream "drys up like a raisin in the sun" when she learns that Walter gave the money to Willy Harris, who mysteriously disappears. Mama does not shatter simply because her dream has not been fulfilled. "Lena Younger's strength of character has come from the steadfast endurance of hardship and a refusal to be conquered by it" (Phillips 51). Mama's economic hardships may have killed her dream, but she has not allowed it to kill her.
Dreams of owning a business and having money to accomplish goals are two key parts played out throughout the whole process. Walter Younger is determined to have his own business and he will go to ends meet to see that dream come true. Financial bridges are crossed and obstacles arise when Walter makes a bad decision regarding money that could have helped the family and not only himself, if he had thought smarter. His pride and dignity are tested throughout the story and he is forced to set up for his family. The Raisin in the Sun helps readers to understand the history of racial discrimination and how racial discrimination has an effect on the people in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as how that has an effect on the characters within the play.
Walter wants the insurance money so that he can prove that he is capable of making a future for his family. By doing well in business, Walter thinks that he can buy his family happiness. Mama cares for Walter deeply and hates seeing him suffer so she gave into his idea. Mama gives Walter the rest of the money and tells him to put half in a bank for his sister's schooling and he could do whatever he wanted with the other half.