A Raisin In The Sun Gertrude Quotes

"Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life" (Fussman, "Jimmy Dean: What I've Learned"). Stated by Jimmy Dean, this quote symbolizes the psychological effect that poverty can have on an individual's drive. Dean's poor upbringing motivated him to strive for greatness. As a result, he became a famous television personality, country singer, and of course – sausage maker. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, considering Ruth Younger's poverty-stricken surroundings, Lorraine Hansberry delves into her pessimistic personality using dialect to illustrate her ability to compromise her morals when appropriate, and, similarly in the play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare portrays Gertrude as a woman of ambiguous morality.

In A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry

Ruth symbolizes the African American women who were not typical housewives in the 1950s, because due to racism, both her and her husband have to work for their family’s income. An example of Ruth’s ambition shown in the play is when the feeling of tiredness strikes her, but she tells Mama: “I got to go in” to work because the Younger family needs the money (501). Due to the fact that this quote uses African American dialect because instead of saying “I have to go in” she says the ungrammatically correct quote “I got to go in”, it highlights her oppression due to the fact that she has not had much formal education and further emphasizes her drive to work to provide for her family. All this financial stress on the family affects Ruth's marriage which is quite candidly indicated to the reader when she says:

We got to get OUT OF HERE!!”, Gertrude appears dependent of men in contrast (3.1.74). In Hamlet, social dialect conveys this fact in the line: “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.146). For the reason that, as social dialect, this line highlights a renowned stereotype about women. Here, Hamlet’s agony arises from her marrying Claudius as aforementioned. He continues: “A little month, or ere those shoes were old...she followed my poor father’s body...Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she — O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer! — married with my uncle, My father’s brother… (1.2.151-158). Here, Hamlet expresses his disappointment in Gertrude so strongly that he fails to even put together complete sentences and compares her to Niobe — a character in Greek mythology — who desperately mourned the death of her children so much that she turned into a rock. One can infer that Hamlet compares his father’s funeral to if it were his funeral and Gertrude would have attended and failed to grieve his death for a long amount of time. In further detail, Ruth’s sense of morality turns questionable when she thinks of having an abortion: “I think Ruth is thinking 'bout getting rid