Raisin in the Sun the Essay

Total Length: 776 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 2

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Walter's desire for financial success and his stories of rich white people are a metaphor for the self-respect he lacks in himself. It's easy to say that Walter should pay more attention to what is really important in life: family, respect, love, etc., but what Hansberry is illustrating is that when one lives in a society that looks down upon a group of people, those people have a much more difficult time seeing themselves in a positive light. This makes it difficult for Walter to develop as a character.

Walter struggles to get ahead in any way he can. He comes up with the idea of getting the insurance money from his father's death so that he can start a business -- even though the money should go to Walter's mother who is desperately in need of retirement. She loves her son, though, and decides to give him a chunk to start working toward his dreams. The changes in Walter once he gets the money are huge. He is almost euphoric at the idea of all this money.
This proves that Walter only thinks of himself as worthy if he has something of worth in his hands. When Walter loses the money to a untrustworthy friend, Walter has to make a decision about what kind of person he wants to be and Walter does decide that it is his family and their respect for him that makes him a worthy person. This is when true change comes for Walter. The difference in him from the beginning of the play to the end is huge.

When Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, many critics believed that she had wrote a collective -- and universal -- story about the American dream. Hansberry's goal was to find a more constructive way of viewing what many perceived as a threat - i.e. different races, cultures, etc. Yet, both the narrator and Walter share the same fate. In this sense, there is more work to be done. The path of this mission has been well paved by Hansberry, but there is still more work to do.

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