Ryan Gunn
ENGL 2604
Professor Welch
4/28/11
Deferred Dreams in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun
In her play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry uses an insurance check
to expose various family members’ dreams. The play depicts a few weeks in the life
of the Youngers, a lower-middle class African American family, whose patriarch,
Big Walter, has recently died, leaving $10,000 in insurance money to the family.
The first scene, which takes place the morning of the day before the check comes in
the mail, is pivotal in revealing the family’s dreams. The new man of the house,
Walter, wishes to invest the money in a liquor store business venture with his
friend Willy Harris, in hopes that it will make the family rich. Beneatha, Walter’s
sister, wants the money to put her through medical school so that she can become a
doctor. The matriarchal widow, Mama, desires to use the money to buy a house with
a garden and a yard for Travis, her grandson, to play in. Despite their many
protests to the idea, assimilation into white society remains the goal of the
Younger’s dreams. During the 1950s, when Hansberry wrote the play, the dreams of
the white, middle class families a nice house with a yard, a non-servitudal job, and
financial security. The Younger’s share these same dreams, although each member
of the family has a different idea about how to attain this dream. The title of the
play comes from Harlem, a poem by Langston Hughes. Much like A Raisin in the
Sun, Harlem was written in the 1950’s just prior to the black civil rights movement.
Segregation and other civil injustices had caused blacks to lead subdued lives as
second class citizens. Hughes poem is conjecture about how the coming civil rights
movement would present itself. Hansberry draws from this, choosing to depict a
single line from the poem, “does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?” Hansberry uses
the dreams of Walter, Beneatha, and Mama to answer the question Hughes poses at
the beginning of his poem: “What happens to a dream deferred?”
Walter’s dream to become a businessman is hampered by his immaturity and
bad decision making skills, making him both the protagonist and antagonist of the
play. Walter always blames his problems on others. Before he even speaks in the
play Hansberry describes his voice as having “a quality of indictment” (25). When
Ruth, Walter’s wife, tells him to stop talking about business and eat his breakfast,
Walter gives a length speech on how it is Ruth’s fault that Walter has not achieved
his dream, saying, “Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: eat
your eggs and go to work” (33). Despite this apparent selfishness, Walter acts only
out of hope to elevate his family. His intentions are selfless even if the results of his
actions say otherwise. When Walter’s son, Travis, asks for 50 cents for school,
Walter hands it, and more, over even though he knows that as a result he won’t
have money to take a cab to work and will have to face the humiliation of asking his
wife for the money.
As the play progresses Walter becomes less confident that he will be able to
use the money for his business venture. Consequently, Walter loses interest in his
wife, job, and sobriety. He frequents the Green Hat, a local bar, and comes home
drunk regularly. A natural diuretic, alcohol dehydrates a person upon consumption.
Walter’s already desiccated life dries up even more (like a raisin in the sun) when
he is unable to pursue his dream. However, when Mama entrusts Walter with the
remaining insurance money, $6,500, Walter becomes rejuvenated and tells his son,
“Daddy ain’t drunk. Daddy ain’t going to never be drunk again” (107). His troubled
family relations and his drinking problem seem to dissipate when he is allowed
follow his dreams.
Walter’s elatedness does not last long however. Walter hands the money for
the investment over to Willy Harris, who in turn splits town, taking the money with
him, leaving Walter as broke as he was at the beginning of the play. When
Beneatha blames Walter for the lost money Mama questions why Beneatha doesn’t
treat her brother with love, and Beneatha responds, “Love him? There is nothing
left to love” (145). Already dehydrated, a raisin, when put in the sun, shrivels even
more, down to almost nothing. The same thing happens to Walter when he dream is
taken away a second time. This abrupt change of fortune causes Walter to consider
drastic actions to restore his family’s financial assets in exchange for their pride.
Walter calls Linder to the house to accept his deal to pay the Younger’s not to move
into his white neighborhood. But before He can consent, he comes to the realization
that the unity of the family is a far more important dream than financial prosperity.
In this moment, Walter matures and overcomes the selfishness of his previous
actions. His dreams and the dreams of the rest of the family become one.
Walter’s sister, Beneatha, harbors an unorthodox dream of becoming a
doctor, a profession typically held by white males. However her dream is seemingly
contradicted by another dream: to escape white assimilation and embody her
African heritage. Beneatha seems to be the only member of the family that is not
concerned with money, beyond what she needs for her tuition. She dislikes George
Murchison, the richer of her two suitors, and prefers the intellectual and cultural
Asagai, a fellow student from Nigeria. However when Walter loses the insurance
money, including the portion for Beneatha’s medical school, she becomes jaded. She
loses her interest in medicine and African culture, claiming her previous interests
and desires were “idealist.” When Asagai comforts her and asks how she is, she
responds, “Me…I’m nothing” (132). In the same way that Walter did when his
dreams were taken away, Beneatha withers like a raisin in the sun. Asagai
attempts to restore Beneatha by questioning the motivations behind her dreams
when he asks, “Isn’t there something wrong in a house—in a world—where all
dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man?” (135). Asagai accurately
assesses that the entire family, including Beneatha, have been focusing on the
money instead of their true dreams. Noting his observations, Beneatha decides to
accept Asagai’s proposal to return with him to Nigeria.
Mama is the most virtuous in her dream. She realizes that family is more
important than anything. She is a woman of good character, whose actions are
nearly always selfless. She shows this from the start when, as soon as she enters
the stage for the first time, she immediately begins nourishing a feeble plant that
she keeps throughout the play. The plant serves as a metaphor for her family.
While at times it looks frail and parched, Mama is constantly nursing it, making
sure it stays alive. She proceeds to offer Beneatha her coat, make Travis’ bed, and
console Ruth about her marriage troubles. Mama summarizes the reasons behind
her selflessness in a short statement when talking to Ruth: “Seems like God didn’t
see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to
make them dreams seem worthwhile” (46).Even before her husband died, Mama
desired to move out of the apartment and buy a house. When talking about her
plans for the insurance money, Mama recalls, “I remember just as well the day me
and Big Walter moved in here…wasn’t planning on living here more than a year.”
Hansberry then makes a parenthetical stage direction stating “she shakes her head
at the dissolved dream” (44). The temporary apartment became permanent and its
appearance mirrors Mama’s dream: dry, dark, and colorless like a raisin.
Mama runs into conflict with Walter with Walter due to their different
opinions on life. In an argument Mama states that life is about freedom, instead of
money. Walter responds angrily, “No—it was always money, Mama” (74). While
Walter sees money as a means to freedom, Mama sees freedom as a means to
happiness, a fortune greater than money. Mama sets out to alter Walter’s beliefs
when she puts down a payment on a new house. As he is apt to do, Walter blames
Mama, telling her, “You butchered up a dream of mine—you—who always talking
‘bout your children’s dreams” (95). Despite Walter’s antagonism, Mama carries on.
She eventually succeeds in shifting Walter’s perspective, and he realizes his dream
and Mama’s dream is one in the same: the unity of the family.
Throughout the play the happiness of the characters is directly related to
their success or failure in attaining their dreams. She answers Hughes’ question by
showing that when the family’s dreams are deferred, they fight and fall apart,
withering like “a raisin in the sun.”