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Strengthen A Family In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Selfless. Devoted. Submissive. When a woman puts her faith in her husband and trusts his judgment, she puts aside her own feelings. But how far will she go to keep everyone happy? In the end, how does her sacrifice strengthen a family? In A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry shows a 1950s wife as compliant, yet strong. Ruth Younger, a submissive, scared, peacekeeping woman, who works as a housekeeper, will go to great lengths to keep her husband happy. In the end, her quiet devotion helps her family through difficult times. Her dream is to be content with her family, and she wants to please them. The Younger family lives in Chicago in the 1950s. They survive in an overcrowded apartment not fit for a family of five. The family has dreams, big dreams. Mama, the matriarch of the family, dreams of owning her own home. Her son, Walter Lee, Jr., dreams of owning a liquor store. His dream nearly destroys the family. Walter’s sister Beneatha hopes to be a doctor someday. Ruth, Walter’s wife, puts her dream of owning a home aside to support her husband’s dream. In her obedient, quiet way, she juggles keeping everyone happy. Ruth, mother to ten-year-old Travis and wife to Walter Younger, lives with her husband’s family in a small, overcrowded …show more content…

She will do whatever it takes to be a good wife. When her husband asks her to speak to his mother about giving him money for a liquor store, Ruth obliges. “It’s just that he got his heart set on that store-” (42) she tells Mama. When Mama questions the family’s ability to run a business, Ruth replies, “Ain’t nobody business people till they go into business. Walter Lee say colored people ain’t never going to start getting ahead till they start gambling on some different kinds of things in the world - investments and things.” (42) Although Ruth probably does not agree with her husband’s plan, as an obedient wife of the 1950s, she backs

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