A raisin in the sun by Lorraine Hansberry - Research Paper Example

With $10,000 worth of insurance check, Hansberry asks if this is enough to buy their American Dreams. Raisin in the Sun depicts the deferred American Dream, where blacks diverge on their ideas of being African American and how this affects their definition of the American Dream, but as a family, they resolved their individual differences through affirming racial equality through racial integration and the variety of their dreams. The play argues that the poverty of the black working-class is a product of racial prejudice and a misplaced sense of humility.

The setting of A Raisin in the Sun embodies the constrained life of African Americans. The Southside Apartment of the Youngers is a place of “weariness” where “too many people have lived for too long” (Hansberry Act 1 Scene 1). Blacks are compressed in a limited space through the policies and programs of the government that rely on racial prejudice. May talks about the space that limits African American growth, a space that ensures their poverty. She says: “Hansberry speaks to the material/ecological situatedness of her characters’ lives” (May 130).

Most blacks rented and did not own their houses, a situation that Lena wanted to change. For her, having a house in a white neighborhood is already the realization of her American Dream. Walter thinks differently, however. Washington argues that Lena’s American Dream opposes Walter’s version of it. He asserts: “[Lena’s] is in short, not the true American Dream, but a second-class version of it reserved for Black Americans and other poor people” (Washington 130). Lena has a misguided sense of humility because she sees that a house is enough.

Walter knows better because he does not aim for mere existence, but a true sense of development through a business undertaking. But Lena warns him of taking more than what the white society can afford to give blacks. She says: “When a man goes outside