Raisin in the Sun review_Paul Ahn
“A Raisin in the Sun” is tad different from the plays we read before. It was strictly not about an event but about the hardship of the day to day life of living in the south Chicago harlem. It is about the reality and difficulty of making choices in order to move on into a better life. Mama, Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha all have their own dream which will bring them a better life. Mama and Ruth wants a better living condition that will bring their family closer and eventually set them on a better track. While Walter wants to invest in a liquor store which he believes will solve their future financial problems. Finally Beneatha, a smart and ambitious woman she is, wants to pay for her medical school tuition. Each of them has their own ideal outcome which in some sense is all a gamble because none of them know what will really happen until it actually happens.
During their dillema due to Ruth becoming pregnant Mama decides to move to a better (Mostly populated by white demography) neighborhood with the insurance money. It turns out the members of the community that they were trying to enter decided to give them a buy out payment so that they would stay out of their neighborhood, afraid that a black family would cause problems. This is the part where you can see that not only is it themselves that needs to be fought in order to better themselves but also battle the prejudice of the world. Outrageous at such demands but at the same time Walter who has lost large sum of the insurance money due to his friends scheme debates on taking the money. Again it shows the reality between giving into the reality or in other term, an easy way out, and trying to fight for whats right. But I believe even though I agree with the rest in saying that it is an outrageous thing what the white representatives did but in if I were in Walters position at the time I can’t say for sure that I would deny the money. At the time their future was bleak in term of the money they had left. They were not sure of the future. I keep repeating the uncertainty of the future because from what I read in the script I got the feeling that large part of the play was trying to portray the difficulty and the courage it would take in order for people to take a step forward into the unknown, and it is what a lot of the African Americans did during the time period in order move one step closer to fighting prejudice. The family could have just decided to receive the payout and use the money to improve their life or even move to another community with the money. But if they were to take the money, they knew that next if another similar thing happens they would already have done something similar to it will be easier to give in.