Meaning To Achieve In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

Dreaming to Achieve

In this day and age, everyone can dream, but what matters is what is done to accomplish those dreams. This separates the Dreamers from the Achievers. The achievers see an opportunity and they take it. The dreamers simply dream and wait for circumstances to fall into their lap. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry tells the story of the African American Younger family living in poverty on the south side of Chicago during the 1950s. They live in a beaten down apartment. The Youngers are due to receive a life insurance check of $10,000 due to the death of Big Walter. Everyone in the family has an idea on what to do with the money. Mama, who is the head of the house, wants to buy a house. While Walter, Mama’s

A lot of people think of a nice house, a stable job, and a happy family. In reality, it is often difficult to accomplish everything someone sets out to do. People often put off their dreams due to the many roadblocks that stand in their way. Putting off dreams for a later can result in never achieving them. This can be seen in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun. In the play, Mama and Big Walter planned to stay in the beaten down apartment for a year from the time they moved in. They said that they would save up little by little to finally buy a house in a different neighborhood. Several years go by, they have children, and they are still living in that apartment. Big Walter later dies, and they end up not accomplishing their dream of buying a new house together. (Hansberry 44, 45) In this case, Mama’s and Big Walter’s American Dream was buying a new house together. The big obstacle in their way was money, or lack thereof, and prevented them from achieving their dream. It is always easier to set out to do something, than it is to accomplish it. It isn’t until much further in the play that Mama finally accomplishes her dream, but it is done so in a way that is not ideal. It isn’t until Big Walter’s death that she gets an opportunity to finally accomplish her dream. Mama ends up buying a house in a white neighborhood. This results in a visit from a representative of that neighborhood that tells the Younger family that they don’t want a black family moving into their neighborhood, and that the neighborhood is willing to buy the house at a marked-up price to achieve that. The Younger family moves regardless. (Hansberry 91, 118, 148) The visit from the representative generates a sense of unwelcomed hostility towards the Younger family. The Younger family moving into a white neighborhood creates social problems and can foreshadow future unhappiness