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A Raisin In The Sun Character Analysis Walter

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How do we interpret the character of Walter?
The character of Walter is characterized as a struggling black man often viewed as having a male chauvinistic attitude towards women. Challenged with the responsibility of being the man of the family (head of household) who struggles to support the family financial needs. He is continuously contemplating new ways to enhance the well-being of the family. Frustrated by the societal barriers placed on black men and families during the early twenty century which impedes his progress to attain not only his advancement but impedes the prosperity of his family. Walter holds steadily to the notion that money is the answer to his problems (p.1462-1462).

Many readers fault Walter expressing that he is a …show more content…

I support my point of view with this: Walter has had a lot of responsibility placed on him by the family and more so his mother. Being the oldest man (the only man) in a family that has recently lost the one person with whom they (the family) looked up too and counted on for their well-being. It is expected that he (Walter) has to, and will, assume the responsibility of, being the man of the house. With this responsibility, Walter feels the necessity to fill and walk the shoes of his father who in the eyes of the family was smart, strong and dominant. Let's remember that this family is going forward during a period in which blacks, for the most part, were poorly educated with no real understanding, e.g., education and or training of what success embodies. Therefore we have people and in this case, a family who has no other recourse but to embrace thoughts of success through a layperson understanding. So, often the ideas are not presented as a well thought out venture. Thus they are not planned nor executed successfully. My support for this perspective is stated throughout the play, however, as an example, let's look at this statement made by Walter: That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking

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He wants to be a businessman and own a liquor store. He wants to be able to provide for his family and give them what they have never had. Walter also wants to take his mother’s position as the head of the house and make the financial decisions for the family. Walter can be seen as selfish as instead of putting the money for him and his sister in the bank he uses it all and loses it trying to fulfill his own dreams with no regard to his sister’s dreams or the rest of the family’s.

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He is hitting the white man’s nineteen fifties social ceiling, yet wants to go past that and max out at his own status ceiling. One reason Walter acts the way he acts could possibly be because of his environment, in Act 1 Scene 1, Walter is talking to Ruth about the insurance money and how he wants to invest in a liquor store. Ruth shut him down by saying “ eat your eggs”(Hansberry 1547). Ruth is trying to tell Walter to “walk the line” and do what you have always done, don’t try new things and possibly dig the family into a deep hole, Walter does not like this response from

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The book states that he "is a intense young man in his thirties."(11). Through out the book Walter cares about his family, but he puts them aside when it come to his own interest he often puts the family members aside. This causes conflict throughout the house. When getting in a fight about how Walter want to open a liquor store he gets upset and, he will not except he opinion. When she tries to move on a avoid conflict his response is “See I’m trying to talk to you 'bout myself (Shaking his head with the repetition) and all you can say is eat them eggs and go to work.”

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Walter dealt with a hardship in his live as well. Walter was faced with racial discrimination. He wanted to have money to be able to to what he wants, follow his dreams. The only problem is that he didn 't have a high paying job. Your probably thinking to yourself why doesn 't he just get another job.

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Walter further shows his false pride when he flaunts his newfound sense of power when Mr.Lindner, one of the Younger’s soon-to-be neighbors, offers him an unjust deal. Now that Walter has control over the family 's money, he considers himself the head of the family and decision maker; this plays an important role towards how Walter treats others now that he holds himself to a higher standard. This theme applies to Walter when the chairman of the “welcoming committee” (115) named Mr.Lindner pays a visit to the family a couple weeks before they 're supposed to move into their new home in Clybourne Park. During this visit, Mr.Lindner makes the offer of the Clybourne Park community “buy[ing] the house from [them] at a financial gain to [the] family” (118). Mr.Lindner’s offer represents the racial oppression and how the white community looks down upon and doesn’t want African american people dirtying their communities.

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The way that Walter thinks is that if he had lots of money he would be better and act different, but sometimes people with too much don’t really act like they enjoy and also money never solves big problems but walter thinks it will. I believe that if you have too much money you think that everything is going so well at the moment and you don't care about spending money, but one day something could occur and you will lose all of so this just shows that no one should rely on money. In life you need to make sacrifices that could be should i spend money on an investment that could be helpful and help out my family in the future or if that I should buy something so I could help out my family instead of later. I believe that you should always help out the family when they are in need because something could happen and it could all go away. Having money should never define the person you are because you could be rich you could just be rude and not help anyone and be selfish and if you are wealthy you could have the nicest heart and be very helpful to people that are in need.

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The Younger family, is a family who are honest and who also work hard for what they want, just because they are black, does not mean that they don 't deserve to live in a better neighbourhood. However, racism also impacted the Younger family beneficially in the way Walter rejected Linders’s offer at the end of the play. The example of racism gives Walter the opportunity to become the man he always wanter to

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Walter uses his imagination to give himself certain qualities,

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Walter’s statement tries to tell the women that he didn’t try to make the world the way it is now. Yes, he wants luxurious items for him and his wife. However, even though he seriously messed up, he’s still the man in the family and will continue to make the decisions for the

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Walter is a man who dreams big, while his wife Ruth is level headed and wants to leave this house (Hansberry). All of these characters have their flaws, but it is who they end up being that is important. These characters are here to provide messages for us about the theme, which is the importance of family, and that money is not all that

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