Period 4
May 28th, 2015 “A Raisin in the Sun”
“A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry is a play written in the 1950’s about the
Younger’s, a poor black family living in Chicago whose dreams have been deferred. Due to their poor living standards and the racism still happening at this time they’ve put their dreams aside.
When they receive an abundant amount of money from Lena’s husband's death, it seems as all their dreams are possible. Lena is the mother of Walter and Beneatha and the head leader of the family. Her dream is for her distant family to be united and happy, in a bigger house. Walter dreams of having a better job to give his wife, son and the rest of his family a better life. As for
Beneatha she dreams of going to medical school and becoming a doctor to be able to cure people. Lena’s dream has always been to move her family into a bigger house with enough space for all of them and a garden for herself. In this scene Lean explains to Despite how hard she works that dream seemed to never come true until her husband dies and receives $10,000. In this part of the scene she is talking to Ruth about what she and her husband big Walter dreamed of,
“We was going to set away, little by little, don't you know, and buy a little house out in Morgan
Park. We had even picked out the house. Looks right dump today. But lord, child you should know all the dreams I had ‘bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back and didn't none of it happen”. This quote shows how Lena had given up on her dream but she is now given the opportunity of making them come true. She decides to put a down payment on a house, as a way to fulfill her dream and give her family a chance of being happy and united.
Walter works as a chauffeur and gets paid so little, he sees his life passing through him with nothing ever changing, and no one ever giving him a chance. He wants to invest in a liquor to have his own business. So when his family receives a $10,000 check he has hope of fulfilling this dream. In this part of the play Walter is trying to explain to his mom how he feels, “...The future, Mama. Hanging over there at the edge of my days, just waiting for mea big, looming
blank spacefull of nothing...Sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool quitelooking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking ‘bout things...sitting there turning deals worth millions of dollars...sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me.”
Although Lena and Beneatha aren’t fond of his dream of owning a