A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun

Eng/125

Ronald Peltier

A Raisin in the Sun

“A Raisin in the Sun” is a short story about a struggling African-American family. The main characters include Lena Younger, also referred to as Mama, who is a strong, proud woman who has raised a family in a crowded apartment on the South Side of Chicago. Her son, Walter Lee, works as a chauffeur. He is intelligent and ambitious, but impulsive, and often quickly angered. He desperately wants to get ahead in a world that he feels offers him few opportunities. His wife, Ruth, does domestic work to help make ends meet and watches over their son Travis. Younger daughter Beneatha is a college student who wants to become a doctor and often speaks of searching for her cultural identity. On the death of her husband, Lena becomes the beneficiary of a $10,000 life insurance payment, and suddenly the family is in conflict over how the money should be spent. Lena wants to use the money for a down payment on a house. Beneatha is hoping that her mama will help her pay for medical school. Walter Lee wants to go into business with friends who plan to open a liquor store, which he is convinced, will be sure a money maker.

“A Raisin in the Sun” offer’s us a snapshot of an urban, working-class, African-American family at a turning point in their lives. The story conveys the inter-family and inter-generational conflicts that arise out of different hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Set in the 1940’s, the story takes place as America was beginning its civil rights movement. The story draws its intelligent dialogue from the difficult questions facing a racial minority in an environment in which the effects of prejudice are always boiling and scratching just beneath the surface. The story examines such serious generational and racial issues as assimilation, the conflicts between idealism, the pursuit of the American dream, and pride in one's racial and cultural heritage.

The cramped and claustrophobic apartment set the...