A Raisin in the Sun Essay An Olympic track and field sprinter, Gail Devers, once said “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication.” Throughout the entirety of the play, Beneatha demonstrates all these traits. Beneatha is set on becoming a doctor from the very beginning, then she starts trying to seek her true cultural identity, and through challenge after challenge with the family, in the end she still circles back to her initial desire.
A Raisin in the Sun 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.
In the play raisin in the sun Ruth has only one simple dream and would be content to live out her life being moderately comfortable. Financial stresses proving to be trouble in Ruth marriage. Walter is incredibly dissatisfied and take it out all on her. “When the world get ugly enough a woman will do anything to protect her family. Ruth was going to get a abortion, but she ended up having the baby instead.
Page 28). He also seems restless and impatient, but still respecting to his parents (he obeys his mother). To me it seems that Ruth and Walter are both stressed (they argue a lot and Ruth already has “disappointment hanging in her face” page 24), due to the family’s financial state. Their relationship seems rocky, yet you can tell they both love each other. Ruth seems to be tired and restless, having worked too much and doing housework.
For example, when Beneatha loses her share of the money, she says, “While I was sleeping in that bed in there, people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody consulted me – they just went out and changed my life!” (Hansberry 134). This depicts the hardships and the unfairness in Beneathas life. This indicates the topic of unfair gender gaps in A Raisin in the Sun because it shows that before she can even handle her own money her brother loses it.
Whereas Ruth adheres to patriarchal standards, Beneatha rebels against them. Hansberry contrasts Ruth and Beneatha to study how their adherence affects their personal and social well-beings. Through her play, she suggests that opposing the patriarchy leads to a more positive mindset and more stable relationships. In conforming to patriarchal norms, Ruth fulfills the roles of homemaker and wife. In the first scene of the play, Ruth makes breakfast and tells her son Travis, “Sit down and have your breakfast,” signifying that she has embraced her role as mother (Hansberry 490).
The family starts to tear apart as Walter decides to sell the house to Mr. Lindner and take the check. Mama and Beneatha try to explain to Walter that their family, through generations, would have never thought about taking money in hard times. Beneatha then begins saying that their dream of moving to a new house is now dead, which Walter replies, “What’s the matter with you all! I didn’t make this world. It was give to me this way!
In A Raisin in the Sun, Walter and Ruth have a personality that correlates to the traditional gender expectation. Walter has an abrupt nature, while Ruth is demure and quiet; the temperament of the two characters corresponds to a man expectation to be dominant and superior to women. Walter comments, “Don’t call it that. See there, that just goes to show you what women understand about the world. Baby, don’t nothing happen for you in this world ’less you pay somebody off!”
I listen to you every day, every night and every morning, and you never say nothing new.” Walter keeps trying to talk to Ruth about things with the liquor business, but she does not care which causes problems between them. Married couples are supposed to talk about their problems with each other, but Ruth and Walter do not which is one of the reasons why they are always fighting. When Ruth and Walter are arguing about things, Ruth gives up and usually just lets Walter win the argument. In the play, it says, “(She raises her head and stares at him vigorously-than says more quietly)”
Beneatha also faced a hardship in her life, but herr 's was different from the rest. She face problems with education. Her family did not fully support her decision of wanting to become a doctor. Beneatha wants to become a doctor but her family is not that wealthy.
From seeing the family fight with one another to loving each dearly it was big character development. In my essay i will discuss how the Younger family dealt with their conflicts and discuss the resolutions they came up with. First, Walter one children of mama younger. Walter older than his sister Beneatha is married to Ruth and they have a son together named Travis.
Beneatha wants to study to become a doctor, but instead Walter Lee wants to spend his family’s insurance money so he can open a liquor store with Willy and Bobo his friends and be a man. Since Walter Lee and his family were in a bad position and were very poor it was Walter Younger’s responsibility to keep the family together and he saw this a very big responsibility. He frequently complained about being a chauffeur and ridding rich people, every day when he woke up in the morning. He would always fight with his wife Ruth, Mama and his sister Beneatha. For instance (Hansberry 32-34) he says to Ruth his wife “You tired, ain’t you?
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play which contains many different obstacles that the characters face. One character, Beneatha, faces an obstacle that is out of her control. This obstacle is gender inequality. Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, gender inequality is experienced by Beneatha and reflects the struggles women faced in the 1950s. One of the issues that Beneatha faces in the play is her relationships with two men in her life, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai.
She is also upset because Walter is giving in to racial tension and calling Mr. Lindner back to negotiate taking money in exchange for not moving into the white neighborhood. Lena immediately snaps back and calls out Beneatha for not learning to care for her brother. In this scene Lena’s maternal instinct really shines through. Even though she is disappointed in Walters foolishness and lack of pride, she knows that Walter is at his lowest point and that persecution and ridicule will not help the situation in any way. She also understands that his pursuit of money wasn't for self interest but to make things better for the whole family.
A Raisin in the Sun addresses major social issues such as racism and feminism which were common in the twentieth century. The author, Lorraine Hansberry, was the first playwright to produce a play that portrayed problematic social issues. Racism and gender equality are heavily addressed throughout the play. Even though we still have these issues today, in the 1950’s and 60’s the issues had a greater part in society. Racism and gender have always been an issue in society, A Raisin in the Sun is an important piece of American history during that time period.