In his teens, he worked as a Pentecostal preacher, under the influence of his father. Yet as he grew older, he moved away from the influence of the church. He found himself an apartment in the artist's district of Greenwich Village, NY and then, in 1948, in part due to racial injustices and the alienation he felt as a gay black man in the US, he moved to Paris. He returned to the United States in 1957 and became a major part of the civil rights movement. When "Sonny's Blues"
Perry Mullins ENG-114-03 19, April 2011 Word Count 945 Walter becomes a man in the play a Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry The play was written in the 1950’s, and addressed family and dreams, but it was also about a man’s growth. He was consumed with thoughts of money and when his father passed away he was determined to get the insurance money from Mama. Walter a 35 year old man was struggling with living under his mother’s roof, and rule. This made him feel like a failure living under his mother’s thumb. In this play Walter began very childlike mentally and irresponsible, but in the end he grows to become a man.
“Son, I think you should talk to your wife… I’ll go on out and leave you alone if you want” (p.70). Walter’s mother, Lena Younger, is trying to give her son and his wife alone time so his wife can tell him she’s pregnant. Walter ignores his wife and puts his focus on if he can have the check, but since no one wants to hear him out, he runs out the house to find peace. Walter’s dream for wealth and success impacted his actions by not going to work. “She said Mr. Arnold has had to take a cab for three days… Walter, you aint been to work for three days!
Mr. Lindner a man from the neighborhood comes to the Younger house trying to convince them to not destroy the white community. He offers a lot of money in exchange for their acceptance. Meanwhile Walter looses all the money he has invested in the liquor store because I friend has run away with it. When he loses the majority of their financial resources the entire family falls into a deeper level of depression. At this
Walter, the husband has a dream to open a liquor store and waits for Mama to get her insurance check. Beneatha’s dream is to be a doctor and is willing to do whatever it takes to become one. They set these goals in order to try and fit into society, but these slowly come to a downfall. Dreams and values are tested in the Younger family when money causes turbulence, dreams are crushed, and new dreams are realized. When money causes turbulence in the family,
No; hunger [is] back there, and fear.”(31) The police find Richard and take him back, but soon afterwards his mother takes Richard and his brother to her sister’s house. Living with his aunt does not work out, and after many years of living in many different households, Richard finds a job as a ticket collector at a movie theater. Richard is determined to escape the South, so, although it is risky and does not feel right, he takes part in money-making scams and steals to make enough money to flee. As he sees it, it is “freedom or the chain-gang.”(205) He goes to Memphis and stays with a woman who immediately wants him to marry her daughter, but Richard refuses because he cannot relate to their “peasant mentality” and does not want to be confined to such a simple life. (214) Richard hungers for literature because it lets him see the world beyond his own surroundings and becomes the only way he can express himself.
He has become an alcoholic and doesn’t seem to realize how much he has affected his fatherly figure by destroying the portrait he once carried. Manny, Mr. Hernandez’s son recalled “He would walk into the living room, and all the pictures, tiny statues and glass animals mom collected would sparkle from the light rushing in through the door” (54).Now on the contrary he said nothing would sparkle and his father came into the house with no money or food. As a victim of alcohol Mr. Hernandez will not
It was always her dream to have her own home. Walter wanted to open up a liquor store with an untrusting friend so that they could always have money in the future after investing in the business. Ruth became pregnant from her husband Walter, and feared that, that would cause even more of a burden on the family’s money problems. Beneatha had dreams of being in the medical field and was going to use the money for her school’s tuition. I liked the plot of the
A Raisin in the Sun - Lit Analysis In the play “A Raisin in the Sun”, there are clear variations between the ideals of Lena and her son, Walter. Due to Lena’s upbringing with liberation from slavery, and old-fashioned beliefs, her sons’ obsession with becoming wealthy is very disturbing to her and that causes friction between the two among other things. Throughout the play, there are many times where Lena and Walter do not see eye-to-eye, and the reason for this starts with the fact that Lena was born of a generation of slaves. Lena mentions time and time again how she lived a very different lifestyle. “Son-I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers- but ain’t nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk this earth.
Sarah Winkler Dramatic Lit. Hour 6 9/20/12 A Raisin in the Sun [Paper] A Raisin in the Sun Throughout the book A Raisin in the Sun, the search for the American Dream is ever present. The Younger family lives the life of every African American living in the big city during the 1960’s; constantly feeling the lack of acceptance from the white community, the majority. Each member of the family, in their own way, chases after their own American Dream of being bigger and better than the standards set before them by their ancestors. When Mama says, “Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home,” she displays her lifelong wishes for her future (Hansberry 41).