Raisin in the Sun the

¶ … Raisin in the Sun The main characters in a Raisin in the Sun are Lena, Walter, Ruth, Travis, Beneatha, George and Joseph. Lena is the matriarch of the family, left after her husband dies. Walter and Beneatha are her children. Ruth is Walter's wife and Travis is their son. They all share a cramped apartment together. George and Joseph are two men courting Beneatha. George is a wealthy businessman from Chicago and Joseph is a Nigerian, responsible for bringing out a sense of pride in Beneatha.

These characters are different from one another. Walter is the son, who has failed at filling his father's shoes. He has big dreams but cannot figure out the bet way to make them come true, so he spends a lot of time dreaming. Beneatha attempts to make her dreams come true through college classes. Joseph teaches her about Africa and opens her eyes to the importance of her heritage. She realizes heritage goes far beyond the projects in which her family lives.

The title of the play refers to a line in a Langston Hughes poem, in which he asks what happens to dreams when they are overdue. He poses different suggestions, one being that it dries up like a raisin in the sun. This is significant to the play because the Youngers, especially Lena, can see her dream actually coming true with the insurance money.

She has been around long enough to know that this is perhaps the last opportunity she will have to escape the cramped apartment in which they live. She wants to do this for not only herself and her family, but for her late husband as well, because he worked his entire life for the same dream and never saw it come true. That is the overdue dream and Lena wants to make it come true.

When Walter loses the money, the hope of that dream coming true falters and no one can fully understand it but Lena. The title speaks to all of the dreams people have that never come true for one reason or another. Some of these reasons are the dreamers' fault and some of the fault falls on society.

Lena would have to be the most Christ-like in the play because she bears the burden for her family when she can and she sacrifices for them as seen with her allowing Walter to have the money. She is forgiving, however, and she always sees that there is something to love in everybody, even Walter when he has let the family down. Lena is the pillar in the family and without her, the others would eventually go their separate ways.

With her wisdom, Lena leads the family in a realistic direction. She understands the difficulties of the world and knows the value of the money more than Walter. She knows how long it takes to earn such an amount of money and she is correct in not wanting to waste it. She tells Walter people should always be moving forward and trying to "do something different, push on out and do something bigger" (Hansberry 2238).

She loves her children but she also wants to see them do something important with their lives. The climax of the play occurs when Walter realizes Willy duped him. At this moment, we can see that things in the play are resolving themselves for worse. Walter's hope dies as soon as the money disappears. Along with it, his manhood. Unfortunately, this situation is not bad for only Walter. The Younger family will pay for Walter's mistake.

Walter, therefore, did not just ruin his own future; he ruined everyone else's as well. The climax opens Walter's eyes to the wickedness of people. He realizes he cannot trust everyone. Life is full of those who take and those who are taken. He admits to being "mixed up bad" (2258). His dream was short-lived and so was the money. He learns to keep his "eye on what counts in this world" (2258). This experience is good for Walter because it forces him to grow up.

It forces him to realize the fly-by-night ideas he had are generally bad ideas and hard work may be the way to get what he wants from this world. At least with that, he can have the satisfaction knowing he worked hard and tried to earn an honest living. Walter becomes a man when he realizes Willy swindles him. This is important to the play because up until this point, Walter is not a likable person.

He wants to take the easy way to do things and he fails to understand Lena's desire for her family. After Willy takes the money, Walter understands family. Lena is more forgiving than Beneatha but both women gain some respect for him after he stands up to Linder. He even goes as far as to tell Linder the Youngers will move to Clybourne Park and do so with pride because his dad "earned it" (2261). He even says the family will be good neighbors.

We see Walter become a man in this scene and even Beneatha come to respect him. This is important not only for Walter's sake but for the family's sake as well. Walter can now be the man in the family, which is something he failed to do until this point. Beneatha, too, realizes the world is not all it seems to be. She wanted to be a doctor for most of her adult life before the incident with Walter.

She wanted to help people and she took college classes to help her move toward this goal. She was being proactive where Walter was not. She was putting some hard work into her dream where Walter was just all talk. She tells Joseph being a doctor is the "most marvelous thing.