A Raisin in the Sun

“That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby! And his woman say—Your eggs is getting cold!”

Walter takes out his aggression and anxiety about his social stagnancy on his wife. While Walter acts impulsively and is willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of his dreams, Ruth must hold the family together. He criticizes her for responding to his frustration with the directive to eat and go to work, but in order to survive, Walter must eat and go to work. Both life and Walter’s restlessness have beaten Ruth down. She accepts his verbal abuse and continues to support him in return. In his anger at a racist society that holds him back, he has become so focused on his own desperation that he ignores the desperation that he has created in his wife. 

“We one group of men tied to a race of women with small minds.”

When Walter insults Ruth, he characterizes Black men as dreamers married to women who crush those dreams. He accuses Ruth of small-mindedness for her distrust of his plot to buy a liquor store. However, Ruth understands that the promise of quick money should be greeted with skepticism, as it is rarely possible to rush to the top. Instead, Ruth shares Mama’s dream of a home. Owning a small home may not feel as big as owning a business, but it is a starting point for the family to grow. 

“Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people—then go be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be quiet.”

Ironically, as Walter calls his wife small-minded, he inflicts small-mindedness upon his sister. Beneatha’s dream to be a doctor is expensive. But it is also a huge leap forward for both Beneatha and the family. Walter’s suggestion that she “be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be quiet” (20) is symptomatic of the toxic masculinity that drives Walter to act irrationally and lose the family’s money. As the oldest male in the family, he places his role as provider above Beneatha’s legitimate chance to have a serious career. As a doctor, Beneatha would likely become the family’s main provider. This threatens Walter’s masculinity, so he insults her. Throughout the play, he has a pattern of trying to succeed on the backs of the women in his life, instead of encouraging them to succeed as well. 

“Nobody in this house is ever going to understand me.”

As the only adult male in the house, Walter faces the particular demons of his inability to fulfill his role as a provider. Although the women in the house are smart, capable, and proud, he clings to the traditional dictum that he must become the breadwinner. This was the role that his father took, and although it ultimately killed him, Walter feels pressured to do the same. It is true that no one else in the house can understand the particular anxieties he faces, but Walter chooses to isolate himself. He works against his mother, sister, and wife, rather than with them. 

“Lord, if this little old plant don’t get more sun than it’s been getting it ain’t never going to see spring again.”

The plant, which Mama has carefully and persistently kept alive, represents Mama’s essence. In the tiny apartment, there is only a single small window in the kitchen. The plant cannot get enough sunlight to survive, no matter how hard Mama tries. Similarly, the sunless apartment is killing Mama’s spirit. Her casual comment about the plant indicates a much larger urgency. Mama has held onto the dream of a house with a garden and sunlight for her entire life. She has kept it alive, if only barely. But like the plant’s will to live, her hope is wearing thin. If Mama does not take this opportunity presented by the insurance money to finally buy a house, the dream will not see another spring. 

“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.”

Faithfully, Ruth speaks to Mama on Walter’s behalf about his desire to use the insurance money to invest in his liquor store, although she expresses doubt to Walter about the wisdom of pooling financial interests with Willy. Walter claims that the only way for an oppressed group of people to break out of oppression is to take a risk. While this is a fair statement, it does not take into account the fact that oppressed people do not have agency over their own oppression. The difficulty Walter has experienced in trying to improve his social standing and wealth is not a choice or a failing on his part. Beneatha, who is ten years younger than her brother, has the opportunity for an education. Walter, who married Ruth when he was about Beneatha’s age and had a child, likely did not have the same opportunities.  

“Something always told me I wasn’t no rich white woman.”

When Ruth suggests that Mama use the insurance money to take a vacation, she insists, “These here rich white women do it all the time. They don’t think nothing of packing up they suitcases and piling on one of them big steamships and—swoosh!—they gone, child” (27). But Mama has an understanding that certain things are not meant for her. Even with the financial resources to do so, traveling around Europe is something that she does not want to do. Mama is focused on buying a house. Traveling means leaving home, which implies that there is a home to leave. Mama, who still lives in the apartment that she and her late husband rented right after they married, had expected to keep growing and moving, eventually purchasing a home. Mama is not ready to leave home for pleasure because she deeply desires the opposite—a home that she never has to leave. 

“I guess that’s how come that man finally worked his self to death like he done. Like he was fighting his own war with this here world that took his baby from him.”

Although Mama does not offer many details about Claude, her baby who died, this statement implies that the child’s death was in some way the result of their poverty. Walter Sr. responded to Claude’s death by working harder and harder until his body gave out. This highlights the “man of the house” role that in turn plagues Walter Jr. Walter Sr. couldn’t provide enough to keep his entire family alive, so he worked even harder. He tried to fight poverty with hard work, which the American Dream promises is possible. Walter Jr.’s lack of response to Ruth’s decision to abort her pregnancy demonstrates the opposite attitude to Mama, who admonishes him for placing his personal dreams above the well-being of his family. Walter Sr. couldn’t provide for his family in the way that he had hoped any more than Walter Jr. can, but he gave all he had—his health and body—to achieve what he could.

“Big Walter used to say, he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, ‘Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.’ […] Yes, a fine man—just couldn’t never catch up with his dreams, that’s all.”

Although she does not yet understand Walter’s frustration, Mama expresses the exact sentiment that fuels it in the words of her late husband. But although Walter Sr. couldn’t “catch up with his dreams” (30), he found satisfaction in his children. Walter Sr. worked tirelessly to provide and keep his family alive, but his children made it worth the sacrifice. While Walter Jr. desperately seeks advancement that he can see and experience in his lifetime, Walter Sr.’s investment in his children represents the long view of progress. Children symbolize open possibilities for the future. Big Walter may have been unable to see the fruits of his labor in his lifetime, but if his daughter becomes a doctor, he has left a legacy of social advancement. 

“I don’t flit! I—I experiment with different forms of expression—”

Beneatha defends her tendency to switch from one pastime to the next without ever mastering one. Her inability to commit to one hobby or art form represents her unstable and ever-changing sense of self. She comes from a family of laborers, of people who know who they are. But her education has led her to question her identity. It instills in her a restlessness as she searches for the “form of expression” that feels right. Her desire to practice medicine is another form of expression, through which she can channel her need to help and fix. 

“It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no blasted God—there is only man and it is he who makes miracles!”

Beneatha offends her mother with her frustrated, angry declaration that there is no God. After Mama slaps her and leaves the room, Beneatha quietly adds, “But all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens” (37).For Mama, faith in religion justifies the painful existence she has endured. If there is no life after death, Mama’s unfulfilled dreams are tragic. But if there is an eternal reward, her sacrifice is only temporary. Beneatha, whose education has shown her the wideness of suffering and the injustice of the world, rejects the prospect of an ultimate balance to the universe. Her disillusionment reflects the postmodernity that spread after the brutality of World War II. Beneatha’s philosophy requires action, rather than trust and passivity, and spurs her to act boldly and take control of her life as much as possible. 

“You wear it well…very well…mutilated hair and all.”

The tension between Africanness and Americanness is exerted especially upon Beneatha. While Asagai critiques Beneatha’s unwillingness to wear her hair naturally, George Murchison compliments her assimilationist look when he takes her on a date. Historically, Black women have faced discrimination for wearing their hair naturally, particularly in the workplace. In 1959, the play is on the cusp of the natural hair movement that will rise in the 1960s and 70s. To Asagai, natural hair is her African heritage, whereas relaxed hair represents assimilation and bowing to white beauty standards.   

“It’s how you can be sure that the world’s most liberated women are not liberated at all. You all talk about it too much!”

Asagai’s comment responds to Beneatha’s assertion that although Asagai has romantic feelings for her, she is seeking more. He tells her that “for a woman it should be enough” (49). His claim, like George Murchison’s disinterest in Beneatha’s thoughts and passions, attempts to box Beneatha into a specific traditional gender role. Her need to constantly explain and talk about what her own liberation means is, in a way, a signal that women are still fighting for liberation. Beneatha has made it clear that romance is not enough for her. In fact, it is not until Asagai returns with more than romance—a chance to return to Africa and realize her dreams of becoming a doctor—that Beneatha seriously considers him as a partner. 

“It’s dangerous, son. […] When a man goes outside his home to look for peace.”

Mama’s life centers on her home. This is why the house is, to Mama, the most important investment for the whole family. Her accusation that Walter Jr. is seeking peace outside his home extends beyond the moment, in which Walter is leaving out of frustration and anger at his family due to his dashed dreams. His dream of owning a liquor store is selfish, and takes care of his own pride before his family’s well-being. He is willing to sacrifice his and Ruth’s potential child for the sake of something that he believes will finally make him feel good about himself. Mama advises him to find peace at home, implying that he also needs to cultivate peace at home. She is suggesting that he reposition himself so that home becomes his center as well, working from the inside-out, instead of outside-in. 

“Sometimes it’s like I can see the future stretched out in front of me—just plain as day. The future, Mama. Hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me—a big, looming blank space—full of nothing. Just waiting for me. Mama—sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking ‘bout things…sitting there, turning deals worth millions of dollars…sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me.”

Walter describes the root of his desperation to his mother. If he remains on his current path, chauffeuring for wealthy white people, his life will not change. He will never be more than he is. But his obsession with changing his life rises from a frustration with racial inequality. Walter drives white people around town, and he sees what financially-successful whiteness looks like. He understands that wealthy white people are not better or savvier than him. Their luck is simply an accident of birth. Walter searches frantically for the lucky break that will allow him to leap over the obstacles that barricade him from such an easy life. He desires change so badly that he sees what he wants to see in the ultimately untrustworthy Willy, even if his wife already suspects that investing with Walter’s friends is a mistake. 

“Do you hear the singing of the women, singing the war songs of our fathers to the babies in the great houses…singing the sweet war songs? OH, DO YOU HEAR, MY BLACK BROTHERS!”

When Walter, drunk, returns home to find Beneatha dancing to Nigerian music, he discovers a transitory joy in his own Blackness. Much of Walter’s angst throughout the play results from his angry envy of the white elite. But for a moment, the music (and the alcohol) ignites something that allows Walter to revel in a deeply buried pride in his African ancestry. He calls to his fellow Black brothers to hear the appeal of the women singing war songs. In this moment, he pleads with the men of his race to unite and rise up. He finds the nobility in his heritage.

“I don’t go out with you to discuss the nature of ‘quiet desperation’ or to hear all about your thoughts—because the world will go on thinking what it thinks regardless—”

Henry David Thoreau said, “Some men lead lives of quiet desperation.” George Murchison speaks as a Black man whose family has achieved financial privilege. The Murchisons look down on working-class Black families. George cannot identify with someone like Walter, whose “quiet desperation” has reached a boiling point. Therefore, he dismisses Beneatha’s intelligence and passion for change, revealing that he truly only values her as an attractive young woman. George has bought into a system that oppresses African Americans, selling out those who look like him in favor of his own personal advancement and that of his family. Therefore, he has a stake in the system remaining the same. George claims that the world cannot be changed because he does not personally need it to change. For Beneatha and her family, as well as thousands of other African Americans, change is desperately needed.

“You just can’t force people to change their hearts, son.”

Karl Lindner’s assertion to Walter is not untrue. The end of slavery did not equal the end of racism. The Youngers’ legal right to move into a white neighborhood does not mean that their new neighbors have to treat them with kindness and respect. However, while Lindner offers this comment as impetus for the Youngers to stay where they are, it also functions as an accidental call to action. Although people cannot be forced to change how they feel, they can sometimes be convinced. If people like the Youngers did not blaze trails by moving into white neighborhoods and facing racist backlash, many white people would never learn that Black people are just as deserving of rights and respect. 

“What do they think we going to do—eat ‘em?”

To Beneatha’s quip, Ruth replies, “No, honey, marry ‘em” (107). Ruth insightfully touches on the truth behind racialized anxiety. During the era of slavery, white plantation owners invented myths about Black hypersexuality out of the fear that white women would become sexually curious. Many victims of lynching were accused of raping or attempting to rape white women when the actual crime was usually along the lines of making eye contact with or accidentally brushing against a white woman. Despite the prevalence of white plantation owners who raped and impregnated enslaved women, anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited interracial marriage in the United States until 1967, show a widespread fear of blurring racial lines. Beneatha’s question supposes the fear of potential violence, but Ruth’s response uncovers the true fear of dismantling white supremacy.

“‘Cause sometimes it hard to let the future begin.”

The moment before Walter opens the door to find a distraught Bobo, the possibilities for his future are endless. He has gambled not only his future, but his sister’s ability to continue her education—an act that he knows his family will not approve. His only possible redemption is a successful investment that allows him to support the family, including Beneatha’s dreams for medical school. While he has trusted Willy and Bobo with the family’s money and is blindsided by the theft, there is every possibility that Willy and Bobo will return with bad news. If they return with good news, he is still taking a frightening step outside his current life path. Even achieving his dream is tantamount to the death of the hope that has fueled him.

“Ah, I like the look of packing crates! A household in preparation for a journey! It depresses some people…but for me…it is another feeling. Something full of the flow of life, do you understand? Movement, progress… It makes me think of Africa!”

Asagai’s optimism interrupts Beneatha as she wallows in the devastation of her crushed dreams. He comments on the “now almost ominous packing crates” (121), which are waiting for a move that may never happen. While change may inspire sadness for some, Asagai emphasizes the positivity of forward momentum. Beneatha challenges him, angry at her brother and asserting that nothing ever actually changes. But Asagai clarifies that change is slow. His observation about the packing crates recognizes that stagnancy equals death and that the family’s move is an adventure. Even though their journey may have ups and downs, movement means that they are alive. 

“Just sit awhile and think…Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. How often have I looked at you and said, ‘Ah, so this is what the New World hath finally wrought…’”

Although Asagai praises movement and progress, he also preaches patience—something that Beneatha and her brother have in short supply. They are both passionate and impulsive, which can be positive, but these traits have also resulted in Walter’s hasty investment and Beneatha’s tendency to give up. He urges her to think carefully before accepting or rejecting his proposal, instead of acting on emotional impulse. Asagai identifies her as the product of the forced African diaspora. She is a woman with African origins who has been shaped by the culture and structure of the United States. His comment is cryptic, simultaneously complimenting and condemning her. Asagai, who previously told Beneatha that love should be enough for a woman, seems to finally acknowledge and appreciate Beneatha’s complexity. More than she wants to be loved, she wants to express herself. Beneatha wants to fight and to heal, and she has yet to discover how to do that. 

“Life can really be so much simpler than people let it be most of the time.”

Lindner, believing that the Youngers are about to sell back their house, expresses the sentiment that the complexities of life are unnecessary. While he offers this maxim as if for the benefit of the Youngers, the simplicity he and his neighbors desire is the ability to avoid confronting their own racist ugliness. It would be, in a sense, easier for the family to stay where they are, instead of fighting for their right to be in their new home, but remaining in the apartment for so many years has created a festering complexity that is destroying the family. Lindner is polite and respectful to the Youngers, but he demonstrates that he has no concern for the well-being of a growing family that has taken the opportunity to move from a tiny, run-down apartment to a house of their own. To Lindner, “simple” means homogeneity. It means maintaining an insular white utopia that has the privilege to avoid the rising civil rights movement. Giving in to simplicity means that society never changes and injustice goes unanswered.