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Waking Up From the American Dream

The American Dream (i mrkn drim) n. 1. the ideals of freedom,


equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every
American. 2. a life of personal happiness and material comfort as
traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.

On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberrys widely and highly regarded play, A Raisin in
the Sun, premiered at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City. Hansberrys work was
risky at the time, but very well received by the nation. The positive reviews flooded in once the
play came out, although both Hansberry and Philip Rose, who was the plays producer, were not
expecting the play to be such a hit. What is commonly said about the play is that it is considered
universal. It is not only for one gender or race, although it specifically addresses the issues of
African Americans and women in the 1950s. Anyone and everyone can relate to the symbolism
and the themes in the story. Although some say that the claim that the plays characters are
universal people without specific ties to African-American culture appears simply racist. On
the other hand, the assertion that the play is not universal, but exclusively specific to AfricanAmericansthat is, that the characters exist outside the category of humanseems equally
racist (Bernstein). Many people maintain that the play is essentially Walter Lees story. I agree
with that position, and I will be analyzing the play from this perspective. Did Walter Lee live the
American Dream? Or did he need to wake up from his version of that dream: A dream that would
fade away once the sun came up?
Walter Lee Youngerson, brother, father, husbandis a man who has been caught up in
the idea of many empty promises offered by America. He, as well, was consumed by the beliefs
he had in what a man should be to his family. Throughout the entire play, Walter was obsessed
with many things. He obsessed over how to provide for his family, how his family and those
around him perceived him, and what he needed to do to supply himself and his family with

material items. These desires made him a bitter and selfish man. We see these things continue
consistently throughout the whole play. Walter is obviously a man who suffers from frustration.
Throughout the entire story, he battles with his obsession over materialism, fights against racism
and social injustices, goes head-to-head with poverty, and struggles with how to handle his anger.
Walter seemed to believe that the only way a man was the head of the family was by
providing material things for them. I do believe that a man needs to provide for his family, but I
believe he can do so, and should do so, with his time and his presence first and foremost. It
seems at the opening of the story that Walter is caring and compassionate with his son Travis. My
thoughts turn to thinking how kind of a father he was by giving away his bus money so his son
could get something he needed. Looking back, however, I can see that he did this partially out of
pride, and it seemed partially out of spite for his wife. Although Walter and Ruth seemed to have
loved each other at some point, we see through the play that Walter put a lot of stress on his
relationships with the women in his family. When he prioritized his dreams over his family's
needs, even when his dreams were to make enough money for his family, the family fell apart in
some ways and felt resentment toward Walter.
In Free Man of Color, Hilton Als describes Walter to the readers: Walter, a poor
chauffeur, lives in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago, with his
wife, Ruth, his ten-year-old son, Travis, his younger sister, Beneatha, and their widowed mother,
Lena. Its the kind of closed space where promise settles for a while, and then dies. I thought for
a while on what Als could have meant by that powerful statement. The promise which settles is
the promise of a better life. It is the promise that, for Walter, was overcoming the largely
uncommunicable sense of guilt at not being able to take care of the family as his father would
have. Als goes on to write that what discourages Walter so much is the fact that not only

is he unable to give his boy all he needs but hes jealous and fretful with Beneatha, whos
studying to become a doctor and will likely end up much more at ease in the world. While this
story could very easily be perceived as the story of the Younger women, I was personally more
engaged with the struggles that Walter faced. But a key component in the story was how he
related to his wife, his mother, and his sister. His anger seemed to lash out at all of them in
different places in the story.
Walter was willing to sacrifice the respect the women in his family had for him. His
dream of getting rich, in the form of owning a liquor store, was not supported by any member of
his family. Ruth objected to the character of Willy Harris and the very idea of trusting him as a
business partner and purchasing a store with him, while Mama thought it was immoral to use the
money to purchase such a thing as a liquor store. Mama was a religious woman who had very
strong faith and dreams of her own: dreams that were better throughout and more mature than
Walters, without question. Mamas children were what came first in her life. For this reason, her
dream was to purchase a house, which was the symbol of unity and ownership in the play. By
doing so, they could become their own individuals. To me, it seems like a much more sensible
idea than Walter's liquor store, but aside from what seems like the obvious, the conflict in the
family goes deeper. Lena Younger's thinking is restricted by time, writes J. Charles
Washington. Hers is the thinking of a Black woman born near the turn of the century in a racist
American society, and she does not understand the modern ways and thinking of her children
(113). We can see a key point in the play when she became fed up with Walters complaining:
Something has changed. You something new, boy. In my time we was worried about not
being lynched and getting to the North if we could and how to stay alive and still have a
pinch of dignity too ... Now here come you and Beneatha-talking 'bout things we ain't

never even thought about hardly, me and your daddy. You ain't satisfied or proud of
nothing we done. I mean that you had a home; that we kept you out of trouble till you
was grown; that you don't have to ride to work on the back of nobody's streetcar- You my
children-but how different we done become. (Hansberry, 74)
This is one of the most powerful paragraphs in the play. Mama, who is most often exhibited as
the solid rock, can be a spitfire. She had enough of the way that Walter was acting. Washington
writes, Her experiences with discrimination as a young woman in the South affected her
thinking. While they did not destroy her self-esteem, they did color her outlook on life,
narrowing her perspective and restricting her beliefs about what a Black person could reasonably
expect to achieve in American society. A lot of the characters throughout the play struggled
with the ideas of integration and how much of their own personal culture and heritage could or
should be maintained. How much negotiation needed to take place to grant access to the
American Dream? He goes on to say, Though it was a compromise, the action she took meant
that she was a fighter who took the step that many of her generation did in order to make a
meaningful change in her life [such as]buying the house to bring about the change she now
feels is needed for her family's welfare.
Walter was too consumed by the American Dream to see that his mother was fighting for
the same dream. She longed for her childrens happiness. When Mama realizes how deeply her
decision [to put the down payment on the house] has hurt her son, Margaret Wilkerson writes in
a piece of her summary, she entrusts him with the remaining money with a portion to be placed
in a savings account for his sisters college education and the rest for Walter to do with as he
wishes. His good fortune is short-lived, however, because he loses the money in a dubious
business deal. His dream was not only his top priority, it was his only one.

The one who seemed to be hurt most by Walter in the play was his sister Beneatha.
Beneatha did not so much object to Walters plans to purchase the liquor store as she believed that
her use for the money was more practical. She longed to go to college and become a doctor.
Orlando Green writes: Her aspirations of being a doctor, and not a nurse, challenges the
psychological limitations that racist and sexist society has for young Black women. Walter
shows his most acute point of arrogance when he asked Beneatha why she even wanted to be a
doctor. He was arrogant in the way he could not understand why she could not simply be a nurse
or settle down with a husband like other women. Green goes on to point out that, the argument
arises after a discussion on money. Heightened by the conditions of poverty, a choice is made
later by Walter Lee for his dream to be more important than Beneathas goal of medical school.
Her goal not respected, made it easier to dismiss and fumble the money elsewhere. Was this
clear display of a lack of respect alluding to something else? Perhaps Lorraine Hansberry was
reflecting pieces of her younger self in Beneathas character. The play has several points in
which it refers to white racism, something that Hansberry undoubtedly had to face as a young
African American female author in the 1950s. The sheer display of self-determination in her
female characters must have mirrored her real life battle with this issue (Green). This is, perhaps,
why there were seldom places where Walter Lee and Beneatha got along in the play. They lacked
a mutual respect. Beneatha not only had to overcome the deterrence of society, but that of Walter
as well.
At one point in the play, Walter returns from drinking with his buddies and hears
Beneatha listening to Nigerian music. She is dancing in the clothes Asagai gave to her and
singing in an Africa dialect. As Walter stumbles in, he starts dancing to the beat. YEAHAND
ETHIOPIA STRETCH FORTH HER HANDS AGAIN! Walter yells. Ruth looks to him, clearly

unamused at his drunken state and says Yesand Africa sure is claiming her own tonight (39).
He disrespects Ruth, yet again, when she comments on the display of African culture in the
room. He yells at her to shut up, saying that the drums were moving him. This is probably the
most together that Walter and Beneatha are in the play. The most surprising thing about this
part of the play, however, is not that Walter and Beneatha are bonding in a way. It is the fact that
he seems so obsessed with being able to buy nice things for Ruth, but he cannot even seem to
manage to be nice to her. Undoubtedly, the best gift Walter could give to Ruth would be his love
and respect. He does seem to want Travis respect. He did not lash out at or upset Travis in the
play. He almost seemed to try to buy this love at the start of the play when he gave him a whole
dollar instead of the fifty cents he needed and decided to take a taxi cab. This is the first time in
the play when we are really aware of the Youngers financial state. Hansberry did an astounding
job of displaying the deferred dreams of the poor.
One place in the story where frustration is shown is when Walter blew up at Mama for
stealing what he thought to be his chance at a real future full of financial security and new
opportunities. He yells, you butchered up a dream of mine - you - who always talking 'bout your
children's dreams" (52). After doing this, Mama feels so badly that she puts $3,000 back in a
bank account for him to access. Unfortunately, he hands the money over to his very
untrustworthy friend. Once he realizes that his friend has betrayed him, he crumbles apart
realizing that he wasted everything his family gained on nothing. Not only had he wasted the
monetary amount of his father's life, but his dream was truly drying up like a raisin in the sun.
What adds more to his frustration is the fact that through this selfish act of taking the money to
help establish his place at the head of the family, he had destroyed Beneatha's dream of
becoming a doctor; something that she seemed to have the drive and the ability to do. All that

was missing for her was the money. We see in the third scene of the second act of the play that
Walter reacted to the realization that he had lost all of the money by literally falling into the fetal
position and holding onto his stomach in great pain and much confusion. Then when he tries to
make it right, he very nearly destroys the dreams of the rest of the family: having their own
house. This was the time in the play that I really saw a softer more remorseful side of Walter. He
realizes that his family is one of many families that have suffered and been discriminated against
for the color of their skin. Using the insurance money the Youngers received for the death of
Walter Sr., they were able to afford a house in Clybourne Park. This was a predominantly white
neighborhood. Mr. Karl Lindner, who was the only Caucasian character throughout the play to
make an appearance, came to the Youngers from the Clybourne Park Improvement Association.
He offered them a large sum of money, more than they were going to pay for the property in fact,
to stay away from his neighborhood. Although the opportunity his family has been given is one
that many African American families in the 1950s would have loved, he almost gave it away for
the money that Mr. Lindner offered. The check he would have received would have been more
than enough to cover the money he had lost to Willy Harris, the shady friend who robbed Walter,
and pay for his sisters education, but he realized that he would have been selling his dignity
(Hansberry).
My favorite moment of the entire play is undoubtedly the moment when Walter refuses to
sell out. This moment of sheer pride and an installment of respect for his family is what I
considered to be the dream he was following the entire time. Walter comes to realize that he
cannot live with this denigration of his family's pride and consequently rejects the proposal. The
play ends as the family begins to move to the new house (Wilkerson). This made him into the
man of the house. I think the struggle against and for materialism throughout this piece can be

appealing to everyone. What makes it very captivating is the fact that it is so accurate. Even
today, the things that people will do to have more things, even things they do not need, are
terrifying. Walter kept putting his dreams above his family. This is almost oxymoronic because
of the fact that his dream was to be supportive of his family. I would like to think that after the
play, after mama walked out with her plant and closed the door, Travis went up and held his
father's hand. For some reason it seems like the best possible ending. I am watching the potential
picture years down the road. I imagine Walter and Ruth working in the garden behind the home
that they own while Travis looks up to two parents whom he knows love him. More important
than providing things, is providing love and structure. I feel like we see glimpses throughout the
play of Walter wanting to be good enough for Ruth and Travis. I do not doubt that he is a man
who loves his family, but he is also a man who is very proud. This play made me consider the
differences between being with your family and providing for your family.
This play left a mark on the views of the time as well. The difficulties and the injustices
which the Younger family had to endure were strong signs of the social progress and setbacks
characteristic of the 1950s, and the Broadway audience of that time could not help but notice
(Wilkerson). This play not only raised the questions of right and wrong in issues of
discrimination and poverty, but also forced the watchers to ask themselves many other questions:
What is the parents role? Does the father have a specific role? Was Walters fight against
poverty or was it against those who saw him as poor? These are all questions that I believe
Lorraine Hansberry wanted to prompt for her readers. Creating an anecdote that made viewers
debate where they stand on these questions is what made A Raisin in the Sun such a powerful
spark that still shines over 50 years later and makes us want to stand up and fight.

Works Cited
Als, Hilton. "Free Man of Color." The New Yorker. 14 Apr. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/14/free-man-of-color>.

Bernstein, Robin. "Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Critical Reception of
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun." Harvard. DASH, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 11 Nov.
2014. <http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/3659695>.
Green, Orlando. "Review: A Raisin In The Sun." TimBookTu. 1 Jan. 2000. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.timbooktu.com/orlgreen/raisin.htm>.
Hansberry, Lorraine, and Robert Nemiroff. A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original
Screenplay. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Plume Book, 1992. Print.
Washington, J. (1988, January 1). A Raisin in the Sun Revisited. Retrieved November 3, 2014,
from www.jstor.org/stable/2904153
Wilkerson, Margaret. ""A Raisin in the Sun": Anniversary of an American Classic." JSTOR. The
Johns Hopkins University Press, Dec. 1986. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3208286>.

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