Lorraine Hansberry looks at a variety of themes in her play Raisin in the Sun. These themes include the challenge of upward mobility for blacks, the problem of inequality—particularly when the Youngers find a home they want to buy in a white neighborhood and are pressed by another home owner there to live somewhere else. The themes of dignity and family are also important in the play, as the head of the household Walter has to make a decision about whether he is going to finally give up his get rich quick schemes and put his family first or blow the rest of the money left by Mama for them to get a home. There is also the problem of the unexpected pregnancy for Ruth and what it means for the family. Ruth is scared because they are already so poor and she does not want to burden the family any more than it already is. But Mama knows what is best and advises her that life is always the most precious thing and that the life of the family is what matters most—more than material possessions, more than money, more than the burden that comes with keeping it all going. These words of wisdom from that matriarch of the drama help to show how the play works its magic: it sets up these conflicts of conscience and then allows them to play out and be resolved in a manner that is uplifting and hopeful.

The fact that Mama takes the money she has and puts it towards a down payment on the home in the white neighborhood so that the family is in a better living space with more room (to help ease Ruth’s fears about overburdening the family in the tight quarters they live in at the time by adding a new baby to the mix) shows just how important and supportive the matriarch is. It is one of those moments in the drama that really highlights how special love and family is. Travis, like Mama, represents this devotion to kindness and love and in his own childlike ways he has as much wisdom and insight as his grandmother. These two help bring the soul and the heart that keep Walter and Ruth on the straight and narrow in Raisin in the Sun.