A Raisin in the Sun

“A Raisin in the Sun” is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry. Like many writers, she wrote about her real life circumstances and what was important to her. This play starts in the middle of a story. We learn that “Mama” is going to be receiving a ten thousand dollar insurance check from the death of her husband. What is interesting about this play is the fact that no one seems to be sad about the death of Walter’s father (mama’s husband). The whole family is just worried about getting the insurance check and where they are going to invest the money. Walter is the son of Mama; he seems to be very self-centered and only worries about himself. Walter and his mother disagree about where to spend the money. Mama wants to put a down payment on a house in a white neighborhood, instead of living in the “ghetto.” Walter disagrees and wants to spend the money on a liquor business with two of his friends.  His mother objects to investing the money in a liquor store because she sees the fact that liquor will cause more problems in their neighborhood and for ethical reasons. This dispute causes small arguments throughout the play. After Mama invested half of the money into a down payment on a house, Walter gets very angry and cause more disputes and anger within the family. To solve some of the issues between Mama and Walter, Mama gives Walter the other half of the remaining money to invest in the liquor store. Unfortunately, one of Walter Lee’s business partners and supposed friends ran off with the money. This tests everyone’s beliefs and 

Even though the main conflict of the play is between Mama and Walter Lee, there are many other members in the Young family household that gets involved in the arguments and is concerned about the money.  We see in this play that Ruth, Walter’s wife, is very exhausted and seems to have a lot of responsibility in their household. Walter seems to look down on Ruth. We see this even more during the scene where Ruth tells Travis (Walter and Ruth’s son) that he cannot have fifty cents for school and Walter gets angry with her and gives Travis a full dollar, which he could not afford. He claims that he did this so that Travis will not worry about the money issues that the family is having. We can tell from the play that Walter and Ruth are having their own arguments as well. We can tell that she is annoyed with Walter because of many reasons for example she ignores his request for “not scrambled eggs” and scrambles them anyway.  

Throughout the play we find that Ruth is pregnant. The family has many more arguments and they are threatened by the white neighborhood for putting the down payment on the house. This play shows that Mama is still the head of her household. We also see that many of the other members of the household is very self-centered, not just Walter. In the end, the family turns down Linder (a person form the white neighborhood that tries to bribe the Younger family not to move to the white neighborhood) by turning down the bribe and moving anyway.