A Raisin In The Sun - Theme Essays - English-language Films

A Raisin In The Sun - Theme *INTRO* A dream may not necessarily be just a dream. With ambition and determination, it can come true in time. Lorraine Hansberry illustrates this theme of achieving success in her play A Raisin in the Sun. The play is about the problems that the economically impoverished African American Younger family faces in trying to make their dreams come true, and the means by which they finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. Lena is Walter and Beneatha's mother. Walter is married to Ruth and has a son whose name is Travis. Lorraine Hansberry shows how Lena's dream of having a house in a good neighborhood finally comes true in spite of the multitude of difficulties that she faces. The ambition and determination exemplified by Lena, Walter and Ruth makes this happen. *BODY 1* Keeping the dream of stability and wellness constantly in mind, and working towards it, Lena is surely the protagonist in the play. Her husband's decease is a big setback for her but she still continues to struggle towards achieving stability. Her moral values of self-pride and encouragement help Walter to produce strength in him to do the right thing. Her installation of love in Beneatha for the members of her family makes Beneatha not hate her brother Walter when he makes some terribly wrong decisions. She has a dream of moving into a bigger and better house since many years. Even after a large amount of the money was lost, she still adamantly acted on that dream and made it come true. This was projected in the play by her plant. It stayed alive in spite of all the difficulties such as very little sunshine, etc. that it faced. It also gave her hope all the way along. She is thus the best example of putting the family's needs first. *BODY 2* Walter, mama's son, feels that every dream he has gets taken away from him. When he learns that mama was receiving a large amount of money, he decided to want to use it towards his dream of owning a business and thus not having to work for someone. As long as they money was there, he did whatever he could to fulfill his dream because it was bubbling. However, it festered and consumed money, and then ran away. The money disappeared and so did the dream. Thus, he appears to be his own antagonist and even the antagonist of the play at first. Hence, even though he has an unselfish character, it gets overshadowed by his unwise decision of giving the money away to his friend who cheated him. He then learns that he has to set his dreams aside for the sake of the family, that pride in him and his family were inseparable and that anything that harms one would harm the other. He proves that by surprisingly telling Mr. Lindner that his family was moving into the house in the white neig hborhood in spite of them being not wanted there. Right when this was about to occur, there is a feeling of dislike towards Walter because he had resulted in the loss of a large part of the money. What was thereby expected was that he would continue worrying about money and sell their dream house to Mr. Lindner. Instead, he does an unexpected, honorable thing. *BODY 3* Walter's wife Ruth too seems to be hand in hand with mama as far as mama's dreams of achieving wellness and stability went. She too like Walter saw a resolution in the insurance check arriving in the mail. The money would let her fulfill hers and mama's dream of owning a house and deserting the dilapidated apartment that she was now living in. She wanted to keep her family together and in working order. The hopes for that began to fall apart when Walter lost a large part of the money. She in fact had even warned him in advance of the undependability of his friend Willy Harris. Later, she even thought about sacrificing her second unborn baby due to financial reasons by having an abortion even though it was highly risky to do so then. Finally, she persuaded