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A Raisin In The Sun Lena Character Analysis

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Lena is a very strong role in the book, A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun is a book about a black family trying to decide about what to do with ten thousand dollars. The family debate and fight lot about the money, it is tearing them apart. They are straining to stay together as one big happy family. Lena is a strong, leader, and compassionate person because she helps the family to stay together.

Lena entered the book as a mom wondering who slammed the door. (39) Lena is a very strong woman by mentally. She always remains strong no matter how things are going badly around her, her son drinking, her daughter in law trying to receive an abortion, her daughter trying to get into medical school but did not …show more content…

Lena is a very old lady, but she kept on working and making good decisions for the family. When Walter asked Lena for money, she said no to Walter because she knows that it is the wrong thing to execute. Yet, when she finally let Walter have the money because Walter is tearing the family. Walter lost the money to his malevolent friend. Lena regretted her decision for letting Walter have the money. (106,107,129) Lena usually made more beneficial decisions, but she has very hard time for letting others making the determinations. Sometimes other characters are annoyed of her making suggestions. Like when Lena asked what did Ruth feed her son. Then Lena said, “I ain’t meddling. I just noticed all last week he had cold cereal, and when it starts getting this chilling in the fall a child ought to have some hot grits or something when he goes out in the cold-”. Ruth got very annoyed. (40) Lena learned through the book that she can not always control everything and she has to let others try and learn about making decisions. The lessons she has learned helps her to become a better

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She could have choose other options and consider the fact that she was involved with Joe before committing to Spunk. Her inability to sacrifice was shown when she said nothing standing next to Spunk as Joe plead his love for her, “‘Lena, ain’t I yo’ husband?’” (Locke, “The Harlem Renaissance”). Lena was determined to have things the way she wanted. She refused to leave her house as Spunk advised, but didn’t want to struggle financially with her husband.

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Lena added that she was a girl and her heels, to help Milkman to understand that she shouldn’t have to be the one, to have helped him go to the bathroom. Lena doesn’t realize that just by saying that she is a “girl” as an excuse, is making herself seem that she is just useless and inferior to everyone. A lot of people just like Lena have done the same as her, that just by their own gender they are and always will be inferior to men, because of this small incident that has happened to her in the past, is the main reason why she loaths

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A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play which contains many different obstacles that the characters face. One character, Beneatha, faces an obstacle that is out of her control. This obstacle is gender inequality. Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, gender inequality is experienced by Beneatha and reflects the struggles women faced in the 1950s. One of the issues that Beneatha faces in the play is her relationships with two men in her life, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai.

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(Hansberry 197-198). Lena’s trying to tell Walter that money does not determine a

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In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry and the speech, “I have a Dream”, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have many similarities to having many dreams, a urge for power, and a want to make a change in the world for the many years to come. In Lorraine’s play, Lena Younger, is a mother who has two children and a step daughter with a kid all living in a two bedroom apartment. Lena wants nothing more than to give her family a better life. In Dr. Martin Luther King speech he wants nothing more than to give the world a better life.

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Lena is a caring woman who loves her family. She is understanding of the problems of others, and can look past their mistakes no matter the gravity of what they've done. Even though both of her children are grown adults, she still has the motherly drive to protect them as if they were still young children.

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Ruth states to Mama, “You know what you should do, Miss Lena? You should take yourself a trip somewhere. To Europe or South America or someplace—(…). I’m serious. Just pack up and leave!

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Being the man of the household, Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and plans on using Lena’s money to do so. Walter is always after money and believes that the only way to succeed in life is with money. For example, when Walter is talking about the check, he says, “Mama, sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking about things, turning deals worth millions of dollars, sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (992).This shows how Walter wanted something more out of life and not just be a poor black man. Everyone in this family had dreams but no one supported each other dreams.

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Since her husband died she has taken charge. In every decision she makes she shows how much she cares about her family and puts them first. After her husband unexpectedly died the dreams he had for his family were placed into her hands and sprouted from there. Lena is very caring supportive, not only of her kids and

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Lena Younger was a religious mother to her family regardless of the anger that her family has towards one another. Lena faith was soon tested when she gave her son the rest of the insurance money to put towards Beneatha college funds and the rest in his name. Instead of doing exactly what his mother told him Walter put the rest of the insurance money towards his liquor store plan only to receive the news from his friend, that the entire plan was a money scheme and Willy Harris ran off with their money. Heart broken by the hard work her husband put towards his life and her son spent the entire money out of selfishness she still loved her son. Lena was a part of faith which is also symbolized through the plant that she carried for the received little sunlight.

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Lena describes her mother as being very timid and apathetic to her circumstances, especially after she loses a baby. Although she is always technically around, Ying-Ying is a very absent mother to Lena. Lena realizes this upon observing the life of her neighbor, a girl about her age named Teresa, who comes from a loud Italian family. Lena believes that Teresa’s mother is going to kill her, as they are always yelling at each other. However, upon talking to Teresa, Lena finds out that they yell at each other so much because Teresa can be reckless, and her mother cares about her well being.

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The author, Lorraine Hansberry, was the first playwright of the century to express real social issues. There are three female characters in the play, each one is faced with a different struggle for their freedom. All three of these women, Lena, Ruth, and Beneatha all dreamed of something more in their future. They did not want the life that every female was supposed to have, they wanted to be different. Beneatha has high aspirations in life and is the character that most expresses her struggles with feminism.

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In a patriarchal society, women are encouraged to focus on their family and its well-being. Most often, women achieve this by caring for the children and the home. However, in the play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry suggests that women do not have to focus on the family. Instead, they can prioritize their own well-being. Hansberry exhibits these ideas through two female characters, Ruth and Beneatha.

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She is clear- headed of what she wants. Although Lena is a woman of the 1950s, she is progressive. With the insurance money she received, she decides to buy a house in a white neighbourhood because she wants a better life for her family. Such a masculine personality in Mama comes from her experience to true oppression – slavery. Mama says that Walter is a “disgrace to [his] father’s memory” as she challenges Walter to fulfil his moral duty to succeed his father.

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Just within the recent decades, men and women started to fight against the gender stereotypes and started to challenge their roles in a family and in the society. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, portrays the lives of African–Americans during the 1950s. Lorraine Hansberry, a writer and a social activist, reinforced the traditional gender roles, especially female’s, by depicting how the Youngers interact and how they act in an economical struggle. Throughout the play, A Raisin in the Sun, she uses Walter Lee Younger, Ruth Younger and Lena Younger to reinforce the traditional role of fathers, wives and mothers within a family.

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