Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

715 Words3 Pages
Money is a large factor in A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, because the Younger family is very poor. Their apartment is very small, only four rooms total. Two bedrooms, a living area, and a kitchen. The living area also supplements as a bedroom for the youngest, Travis. The Younger Family shares a bathroom with multiple other families inside their apartment. The furniture is outdated and they only have one little windowsill, with one potted plant growing on it. The plant is Mama's because she has always wanted a garden. The apartment is very worn and weary, but yet it is still as clean as it could be, thanks to Mama and Ruth. The family could use some more money so they can either send Benny, Benetha, to school, buy a house, or buy a liquor store. When Mama's husband, and Walter Lee's father, dies, he leaves her with ten thousand dollars to do what she pleases. Walter wants the store, Ruth wants a house, and Benny wants to go to medical school. It is all up to…show more content…
Mama says, “Once upon a time freedom used to be life, now it’s money. I guess the world really do change.”(p. 74) Walter grew up being “free” in the way that Mama means, but he faced other problems, such as the lack of financial and social freedom that he talks about here. Walter believes that freedom is not enough and that, while civil rights are a large step for blacks, in the real world for the Youngers, the South Side of Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s, blacks were still treated differently and more harshly than whites. Mr. Lindner, who later comes to persuade the Youngers not to move into his all-white neighborhood, embodies one example of this racist treatment. Mrs. Johnson later speaks of reading about the bombing of a black family’s house in the paper and complains that the racist white people who were responsible for the bombing make her feel like times have not changed. Including the money
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