Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

Spirited. Liberated. Tender. Lena Younger is all that and more. In A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry displays Lena Younger, a strong, respected woman, very caring of her family, motivates her family by telling them life lessons and tries to keep the family together by buying a house. Lena was subjected to slavery. Now in the 1950s is segregation going on. Now in the era her kids grew up in they think money is the answer and Lena tries to show her kids that in her day being able to be free was the answer. Lena and her family go through hardships and try to go through them together as a family and be strong. She wants her family’s dream to come true and for them to be happy. The Youngers live in Southside Chicago in the 1950s. They live in an apartment that has two rooms, but there are five people living there. Lena and Beneatha share a room. Walter and Ruth share a room and Travis sleeps on the couch. Walter and Beneatha are Lena’s kids and Ruth is her daughter in law and Travis is her grandson. The apartment is very small, cluttered definitely not big for a family of 5. But Lena makes the best of it. The family has really big dreams Lena dreams of owning a house. Walter dreams of owning a liquor store. Beneatha dreams of being a doctor. Ruth dreams of owning a home as well as Lena but Ruth puts that aside to support her husband.

Lena’s dream of owning a house comes true because she has insurance money from when her husband died. But at first she didn’t know what to do with the money because she got 10,000 dollars and back in the 1950s that was a lot of money. She ends up buying a house in a white neighborhood and that is very bold of Lena. Segregation was still going on to so the white people did not want Lena and her family there. Walter made her feel unsure about buying the house because Walter said, “So that’s the peace and comfort you went out and bought for us today!”