Importance Of Dreams In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Deferred dreams
In the play of A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, every main character has their own dream, but by the end of the story most of the characters don’t get a chance to make their dream a reality. The main characters in the play are the Youngers’. Their environment was on the south side of Chicago during the 1950’s. They lived in a small apartment and shared a bathroom with another apartment. The apartment consisted of Lena Younger, but in the play she is mostly called Mama because she is the oldest in the family and everyone looks up to her. Walter Lee Younger, he is the husband and father of Ruth and Travis Younger and the son of Mama and the brother of Beneatha. Beneatha is the sister of Walter and Ruth, the …show more content…
Mama’s dream was always to own a house where she could do gardening because it’s what she likes to do. She couldn’t buy a house before because she didn’t have enough money because in her time she had to deal with racism and sexism and for that she wasn’t able to save up to buy house, but because her husband died his insurance money went to her and she bought it. Walter Lee’s dream was to open a liquor store so he could quit his current job which being a chauffeur for a rich white man. Also so he could provide more for his family and become rich himself. He couldn’t because he didn’t have enough money and not a lot support from his family. When he finally got enough money from the insurance money, which was 3,000 dollars, he gave it to his friend Willy so he start up the business with the money. Instead what happens is Willy takes all of the money and skips town with leaving Walter’s dream deferred. Beneatha’s dream was to become a doctor, there are a two reasons why she couldn’t, one of them is similar to Mama’s because for most of the 1900’s black people didn’t have the same opportunities as white people. Females weren’t treated as equal as men. The second reason is because Walter Lee lost the money for her medical education which again left one of the Youngers with a deferred dream. Ruth never really expresses what her dream is or if she has one which concludes that she gave up on her
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