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An overview of A Raisin in the Sun

Critic: L. M. Domina

Source: Drama for Students, Gale, 1997

Criticism about: Lorraine (vivian) Hansberry (1930-1965), also known as: Lorraine (Vivian) Hansberry, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry

Nationality: American

In many ways, A Raisin in the Sun seems to forecast events that would transpire during the decade following its initial production and beyond. The play raises issues of racial interaction and justice, as well as gender roles, class, and the nature of the American dream. It situates these questions, however, within the context of individual choice and individual heroism. Each of the characters in this play attempts to achieve a meaningful life within a struggle against cultural impediments, and an analysis of the characters’ responses to racism will reveal the nature of their heroic qualities.

When the play opens, the Younger family has no clear leader. Its power structure is complicated, especially in terms of American norms. Because the American nuclear family was unabashedly patriarchal in the 1950’s, Walter would seem to be the head of the household. Yet although he might (or might not) make the most money, he is not the family’s breadwinner in the traditional sense, since Ruth and occasionally Mama also work. At this point in history, most married womenespecially most white married womendid not work outside the home. Although these norms varied by race, white norms were so culturally dominant that they were aspired to even by members of other races. Despite his positions as husband and father, Walter continues to live because of economic necessity in his mother’s house. And even Travis knows that he can make extra money by delivering groceries, an activity his mother forbids because of his age. Regardless of the details, though, Walter obviously cannot support this family alone.

It is Mama who has the money, though only because of an imminent insurance payment due her because of her husband’s death. Although the other characters agree that this check is rightfully Mama’s, they also each speculate about how it should be used. They also, though, claim an implicit right to it, since as Walter says, He was my father, too. Yet this check will ironically be the catalyst for a shift in the family’s leadership responsibilities, from Mama to Walter. As Mama says, Walter will come into his manhood when he begins to make decisions for the family at the end of the play. This phrase is telling, however; Walter cannot achieve adulthood without achieving manhood with its gendered implications. Walter cannot be a man, in other words, unless he is making decisions for women. His success at the end of the play, therefore, depends on a sexism that is simply more explicit when it is presented by Joseph Asagai.

Asagai is a Nigerian man studying in the United States. Although he discusses ideas with Beneatha, whom he begins to date, he also argues that between a man and a woman there need be only one kind of feeling…. For a woman that should be enough. Implicitly, for a man that feeling exists but need not be enough. Even if Beneatha can escape the subjugation of American racism through a return to Africa, in other words, that return itself implies a subjugation to male authority.

Yet Beneatha is herself ambivalent regarding her own dreams. Speaking with Asagai, she describes a childhood incident in which a friend, Rufus, was seriously hurt: I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up. Beneatha is so amazed at this abilityand at the hope it offersthat she aspires to perform medical wonders herself. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do, she says. Fix up the sick, you knowand make them whole again. That was truly being God. Asagai critiques this last statement: You wanted to be God? But Beneatha clarifies her point: NoI wanted to cure. Asagai on the other hand claims to live the dreams of the future. Relying on the most romantic of cliches, Asagai urges Beneatha to return to Africa with him: three hundred years later the African Prince rose up out of the seas and swept the maiden back across the middle passage over which her ancestors had come. Beneatha’s last lines in the play occur when she is telling Mama of this proposal, though she seems to misunderstand Asagai’s implications. To go to Africa, Mamabe a doctor in Africa, she says. She apparently doesn’t realize that Asagai’s understanding of her as an African princess is inconsistent with her vision of herself as an African doctor; he wishes her to be a subservient wife to him according to male-dominated social mores.

A major distinction, however, between Asagai’s interpretation of gender roles and Mama’s turning the leadership of the family over to Walter is the place of dignity in each decision. Asagai’s statement that for a woman it should be enough to have a husband will have the effect of limiting Beneatha’s dignity, of precluding her from completely realizing her dreams. Mama’s manipulation of circumstances so that Walter can come into his manhood has the effect of increasing his dignity and providing a venue for him to realize his dreams.

For to the extent that the play reveals the effects of racism, it considers racism specifically within the context of a particular family’s dreams. Mama makes her decisions, in other words, based on her love for her family rather than primarily on an ideological opposition to segregation. I just tried to find the nicest place for the least amount of money for my family, she says to Walter when he objects to her choice. Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses. And it is eventually the family members’ ability to live by their own decisions rather than to simply react to the decisions of others which affords them their greatest dignity. When Walter appears entirely to give up, Beneatha says of him, That is not a man. That is nothing but a toothless rat, recalling the rat Travis had chased in the alley with his friends. There is nothing left to love in him, she tells her mother. But Mama disagrees: There is always something left to love.

The audience will recall that Mama cares for all living things, even those that do not seem to thrive. Characters in 20th-Century Literature described Mama as a commanding presence who seems to radiate moral strength and dignity. According to Hugh Short in an article published in the Critical Survey of Drama, the theme of heroism found in an unlikely place is perhaps best conveyed through the symbol of Lena’s plant. Throughout the play, Lena has tended a small, sickly plant that clings tenaciously to life despite the lack of sunlight in the apartment. Its environment is harsh, unfavorable, yet it clings to life anywaysomewhat like Walter, whose life should long ago have extinguished any trace of heroism in him.

Walter finally realizes that There is always something left to love, even in himself, when he remembers his own father’s pride. He declines Lindner’s offer because my fathermy fatherhe earned it for us brick by brick…. We don’t want to make no trouble for nobody or fight no causes, and we will try to be good neighbors. Walter realizes that just as his dreams cannot be realized for him by others, neither can they be destroyed for him by others. He rises into renewed dignity not simply because he has access to some money but because he has a renewed sense of himself. According to Qun Wang in Works, even though Lena represents the family’s link to the past and tradition, she is very supportive of her children’s choices for the future. Throughout the play, Mama has been trying to lead Walter into the realization of his own dignity, and it is finally through her forgiveness and trust that he achieves it.

Earlier, Mama had assumed certain things about her children’s pride because of the example she and her husband had set. Although she had recognized that Something eating you [Walter] up like a crazy man, it is only when Walter passively agrees with Ruth’s decision regarding the abortion, however, that Mama, in her shock, begins to realize how desperate he feels. He is not like his father after all: I’m waiting to hear how you be your father’s son. Be the man he was … I’m waiting to hear you talk like him and say we a people who give children life, not who destroys them. When Walter fails to respond, Mama is indignant: you are a disgrace to your father’s memory. She considers him a disgrace not only because he won’t argue against Ruth’s proposed abortion, but because his motive seems to be financial; he has become obsessed with money rather than remembering the values she and his father sought to teach him. Here, Mama begins to realize that she must actively intervene if Walter is to find the inner resources to honor his father’s memory. In relinquishing her role as matriarch, she therefore actively participates in the renewal of Walter’s hope.

It is in this sense that the characters are heroic. In choosing life, they defy their struggle. In defying their struggle, they refuse the possibility of defeat.

Source: L. M. Domina, An overview of A Raisin in the Sun, in Drama for Students, Gale, 1997.

Source Database: Literature Resource Center