Essay Sample on Dreams in A Raisin in the Sun

Whether running a mile or going to the moon, it seems like everyone has some sort of dream. Nonetheless, not all are achieved, some are put on hold, some die, and the rest are followed through. Though there are obstacles that seem to await due to copious reasons; racism, family, and sacrifices, not all dreams seem to fail. Walter, In Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, might not have ended up on the moon, but ends up learning a lesson of a lifetime, through facing obstacles due to racism or family but ends up making it through the obstacles he was put through, by the sacrifice he made for his family. Adapting that idea, Walter struggles to feel pride and fulfillment prompting his lack of dignity and respect; however, he realizes that his selfless sacrifices are the key to regaining his sense of self-worth. His realization stems from the societal pressures placed on him and his adverse reaction to those pressures.

Walters’s sense of dignity and pride stems solely from his ability to be his family’s provider causing his self-worth to plummet when he is unable to do so. Walter’s idea of having to have authority drives him to try to become someone he couldn't be. Walter snapped and declared, “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…Mama – look at me ” (Hansberry 73). Trying to tell mama how he dreams of “so many things” and how it's “driving [him] kind of crazy” displays how Walter projects his thoughts and feelings without directly saying what is bothering him. He wants Mama to understand his point of view on his own life. They might live together, but they all living diverse lives. Talking to his mother in disparity, either about the insurance money (a check his family was about to get in the mail because of his father's death) or his liquor store dream (opening a liquor store in order of getting money to provide for his family), Walter’s his dreams seem so out of reach for himself, he just wants to accomplish but they seem so unreasonable, distant, or almost insurmountable. Walter’s dream life: the American Dream being the “rich white life” during the 1950s. The play exhibits how being a black man in the 1950s makes him feel like an “outsider” in his own life. Critic Lloyd W. Brown writes about this theory saying,  “Walter Younger is an outsider on two counts: he is both Black and poor. Hence Walter's unabashed obsession with the insurance money as a key to instant affluence fits the materialistic priorities of the outsider's dream.” Walter feels like an outsider to himself prompts him to unveil an unhealthy obsession with insurance money so he could open the liquor store he prioritizes the wrong things in his life, instead of family, money. 

In addition to Walter projecting his emotions, hurt, and distress, on Mama, Walter also appears to convey his mindset to Ruth. At the beginning of the play, Walter and Ruth get into an argument talking about how he has a dream of opening up a liquor store to make enough money for his family to move out of their apartment and live somewhere. Travis, their son, would grow up in the fantasy life Walter planned for him. This “discussion” becomes something bigger when Ruth shuts down his idea and tells him to just eat his eggs and go to work Walter reacts with, “That is just what is wrong with the colored women in this world . . . Don’t understand about building their men up and making ‘em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something” (Hansberry 34). In frustration, he portrays how he thinks “what is wrong with the colored women in this world”. The topic of having a dream and or idea and it getting shut down, seeming so repetitive causes him to explode on Ruth telling her in infuriation how he wants his wife to just make him feel like she can build up his ideas and agree with him to make him “feel like they somebody”.  When Walter portrayed this he made it seems like the colored women are all that’s wrong with the world when blaming Ruth for not being able to live out his dream. But, Ruth is sick of his ideas repeating like the process of life. 

 As a reaction to his lack of self-worth Walter aims to redefine his purpose.  “You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction . . . a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. . . . That’s how come one day when you ‘bout seventeen years old I’ll come home . . . I’ll pull the car up on the driveway . . . just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires . . . the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogs of all the great schools in America around you. . . . All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son—it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided?. . Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll be it. . . . Whatever you want to be—Yassir! You just name it, son . . . and I hand you the world!” Walter is telling his son, Travis about his dream “business transaction that's going to change our lives”. He transitions into talking bout how this dream coming true would cause Travis to live the life he wanted to live. Walter dreams of coming home one day to a big house with a nice car, a black Chrysler specifically, with a big garden with a serpent and an amazing marriage without any arguments which leads him to say how when Travis turns 17, whatever he wants he’ll get. In saying all this, Walter just dreams of a better life for his family and son instead of the life they live right now. Obviously, this fantasy is not true due to his current living condition, one apartment, one window with his whole family, and being a chauffeur. This leads him to start drinking and skipping work because he wasn't able to live out this dream even when he did have the money. After all, Willy Harris had stolen it leading him to what seemed like depression. Critic Margaret B. Wilkerson says “I have known persons afflicted with drug addiction and alcoholism and mental illness.” Her saying that she has experienced people in her personal life that have dealt with drug affiliation and or alcoholism shows how his alcoholism and “mental illness” could tie to why he started acting the way he was. 

Walter’s epiphany was externally formed by the pressures and expectations placed on him and his family due to the choices he had to make. “We have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by brick. We don’t want to make any trouble for anybody or fight no causes, and we will try to be good neighbors. And that’s all we got to say about that. We don’t want your money.” Again, would relate to him having to step up the authority of being the man of the house and making decisions for the greater good of his family even under extreme circumstances. He sacrifices the money he could've gotten with selflessness so his family could be happy.  Showing that he would “make no trouble” and “fight no causes” exemplifies him sticking up for his family and their beliefs and or morals.

Ultimately, Walters struggles to feel fulfillment and pride given up through sacrifice, whether it was giving up his money opportunities or letting go of his liquor store dream, causing him to get the dignity and pride he was striving for. So maybe Walter wasn’t running a mile or flying to the moon he still went through a great deal of sacrifice and conflict to receive the nobility he longed for.