Raisin in the Sun Response
A Raisin in the Sun is a play that follows the life of an African American family living in the South Side of Chicago. The family is not well off, but they have dreams of moving up. The daughter, Beneatha, is working to become a doctor despite the fact that her brother, Walter, is always telling her that she should become a nurse like all the other women. Walter has dreams too. He wants to start a business. His idea at the present is to go in with a couple of his friends and buy a liquor store. He is frustrated, because no one, not even his mother, will support his dream like they support his sister’s.
At the beginning of the play, things are about to look up for the family. They are going to come into some insurance money from their father’s passing. They will have money to put Beneatha through school and maybe even buy a new place. Mama refuses to give money to Walter’s liquor store. It is this point in the story that Walter’s moral character starts to decline. His hardships have become too much for him and he begins to sinks into a perpetual blue mood. His relationship with his wife, Ruth, is on the rocks and when she reveals that she is pregnant and thinking of aborting the baby, he tells her to go ahead. Mama is disgusted with his actions but she can see that his liquor store dream being crushed is destroying him. To help her declining son, she puts some money into a new house in a middleclass, white neighborhood, and then gives the rest of the money to him. She tells him to put some of it in the bank for Beneatha’s school, but the rest he can use as he wishes. Walter’s mood reverses and he is the happiest we have ever seen him. He has new life and his relationship with Ruth is revived.
However, things take a drastic turn for the worse. One of Walter’s friends arrives with the news that their business partner, Willy, has taken all of the money and run. We find out that Walter had given him all of the money, even the money he was supposed to set aside Beneatha’s school. With this news, Walter’s character takes another dive. He tells the family that he is going to call the man from the welcoming committee and tell him that they will take the money. A man representing the white neighborhood to which they were moving had come earlier to offer them money not to move there. The racist whites did not want to be living in the vicinity of black people. Given the extremely insulting and racist nature of this offer, they had shooed him quickly from their apartment. Walter, who has momentarily given up all hope, calls him to take the deal. Our faith and his family’s faith in him are restored when he changes his mind at the last minute. The play ends with the family packing their boxes into the movie truck and heading off to their new home. The characters in this play were well developed. They were multidimensional and very human, containing all of the moral dilemma’s, dark times, and hopeful dreams of a real person. I particularly enjoyed the complexities of Walter’s character. Throughout the play he struggles constantly to keep his head above water, but sometimes his head slips under. He, more than the others, is emotionally affected by their difficult situation, and so he occasionally looses hope. In the end however, he is able to keep his head up and overcome the hardships that life continues to throw at him.
I very much enjoyed this play. It provides a compelling commentary on the struggles African Americans face everyday living in a racist society. In addition, it is a beautiful story of hope, perseverance, and the power of dreams.