Theme Of Greed In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

As far as history would go, there were many traditional ideas of gender around the world. Like in Egypt, the pharaohs were ideally male, or during the medieval times the King upheld all the power and led his people. The play A Raisin in the Sun was written by Lorraine Hansberry. The play is about the Younger’s family and their struggles; it takes place in the South Side of Chicago during the World War II era. The play both portrays the traditional American ideas of what it is to be a man and a woman, but subverts them too.

However Walters places his own dream, and money, before the values of liberty, respect, and love. “Mama: Sun—how come you talk so much „bout money? Walter: (With immense passion). Because it is life, Mama! Mama: (Quietly). Oh—(Very quietly). So now it‟s life. Money is life. Once upon a time, freedom used to be life—now it‟s money. I guess the world really do change… Walter: No—it was always money, Mama. We just didn‟t know about it. (Hansberry, 514). Walter desperation increases when he sees that Mama it is an obstacle in his dreams.

“Being rich doesn't always mean having money. It means being happy with the amount that you have.” In the play, A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry, Walter Lee Younger Jr, a man who may not be happy until he has this check he's been waiting for in his hands. A man whose family has never been financially stable and wants the best for everyone. Younger has goals, he wants to open a bar and be a businessman. He has a family that does not completely support him and he struggles with accepting their wants and needs. Throughout the play, he learns that money may not always buy someone's happiness. He often struggles with the idea of not having what he needs to provide the right things for his family, which makes him extremely hot headed

Money is being used within a small quantity, and there are no current problems revolving around it, currently. Carfare is something they are both very used to hearing. They tease about it, but they also both assume there would be no problems connecting with their transportation. Money is a motivator to cut the conversation when it’s about to get bad, as Walter had an excuse to leave the room to catch a taxi. As Mama and her son, Walter ‘debate’ about what’s really most important in life, Mama quietly says to Walter, “So now it’s life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life- now it’s money. I guess the world really do change…”(Hansberry 74). Walter is arguing that his point of view about things haven’t changed, and Mama tells him about what was important back when she was young. Money is represented as a symbol of happiness for everyone who has not seen what money can buy, and how it can ‘make or break’ someone’s life. It shows success because of the income Walter has provided for the family, and he has been working hard to get them to where they need to be. However, Walter loses the thousands of dollars that he had earned for the family, and money does not

At its core, “The Black Walnut Tree” is a conflict between the sentimental and what practically needs to be done. Throughout the poem, the author utilizes a very matter-of-fact and almost dismissive tone as the daughter and her mother debate whether or not to sell the tree and finish paying off a loan that they owe. As the poem progresses, this matter-of-fact tone transitions into figurative language as the black walnut tree takes on a more symbolic view. Mary Oliver shows in “The Black Walnut Tree” that the tree symbolizes the family’s heritage and all that their father has sought to accomplish, and, while the mortgage weighs down the family, cutting down and selling the tree would, in a sense, betray the family and what it stands for.

“People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get” – Fredrick Douglass. The Life of Fredrick Douglass by Fredrick Douglass was published in 1845. He was a slave who ran away to the North to be labeled as free in America. He soon became an abolitionist who was the voice of civil and political rights of slaves. On the other hand, a play called, A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, expresses how wealth is a dream in Walter’s eyes. The setting is illustrated in Southside Chicago and shows the struggle of a black family trying to prejudices when wanting to become successfully wealthy. Between these 2 excerpts, they show that their lives are similar, but have more differences in fulfilling their American Dream.

Money is often what is associated with greed in this world. It can blind people to the point where they disregard the situation of all others. In the play “A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Walter Lee wants the money that was left from his late father’s life insurance to invest in a liquor store. Everyone else in the family thinks that it’s a very bad idea. His mother, also known as Mama, is the one receiving the money, and wants it to be spent on bettering the family. But Walter is forgetting the situation that the family is in,

The world stereotypes rich people as rude, stuck up and selfish. Ever wonder why? Studies from Yale, The New York Times, TED and more have concluded, money changes everything. Whether it’s attitude, morals or values, money can affect and change all aspects of someone’s life. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a theme showing this claim clearly. The author, Lorraine Hansberry, puts in different characters to help display these themes and the correlation between money and how it affects people.

When you have money how do you act? Many people in the world believe that being rich and having good money defines what kind of person you are. Money should not identify the kind of person you are. In A Raisin in the sun the character Walter really wants money to help him and not his family, but it should never be like that family should go first.

In A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, the audience was able to obtain a sense of the struggle for the American dream. We are introduced to the Youngerś a black family living in the Southside of Chicago around the 1950’s. Each member of this family has their own meaning to what is the American dream. A Raisin in the Sun teaches us that even though life might be full of conflicts, it is important to not give up on our dreams.

Money is one of the things in the world that a person can become obsessed with. In the story “A Raisin in the sun” the author Lorraine Hansberry shows how a family is changed by the lust of money. A widow, Lena, her son Walter Younger, his wife Ruth and daughter Beneatha all lived under the same roof. Lena just lost her husband and is receiving a check for his death. With the money, Lena wants to buy a new house for the whole family to live in but everyone else in the family sees a different type of opportunity. Being the man of the household, Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and plans on using Lena’s money to do so. Walter is always after money and believes that the only way to succeed in life is with money. For example, when Walter is talking about the check, he says, “Mama, sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking about things, turning deals worth millions of dollars, sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (992).This shows how Walter wanted something more out of life and not just be a poor black man.

To be prideful is human nature, even when it hasn't been earned. Being proud of who you are and what you have accomplished is an important part of everyone's life, but sometimes we are prideful without something to be proud of. This kind of pride is shown in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry through the character Walter Younger. He enters the play with a false sense of pride in being a man, despite the fact that he is a chauffeur who is struggling to support his family. Throughout the plot, he struggles with acceptance of his social status and economical situations, but ends up achieving true fulfillment in simply being proud of who he and his family are as people with aspirations. Walter’s evolution

"Education has spoiled many a good plow hand" (Hansberry 103). This quote is significant because it is applying that education is better than being a hard-worker. A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, is taken place in South Side, Chicago between World War II and the present. The main focus of this play is about a poor African-American family who has a chance to escape this lifestyle with a ten-thousand-dollar life insurance check, but is not desired to live in a "white" neighborhood.

Chicago served as a home to numerous walks of life in the 1950’s, and much of the differences in realities were based on differences in race and people’s opinions of segregation. Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun is based off of real life experiences, and it authentically tells the story of an african american family that strives for equality and The American Dream. Walter Younger, the father of the family, battles with deferred dreams of his own and for his family. Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun and Nina Simone’s song “I Wish I knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” both portray Walter’s emotions throughout his daily struggles with his family as they dealt with segregation and destitution.

In the play Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry takes place on the southside of Chicago where Walter and his family are racially profiled and show us how the survive throughout their struggles. The central struggles for the younger family in their search for the American dream is mostly poverty and being racially profiled against for their actions.