‘A Raisin in The Sun’ is an excellent literary work by Lorraine Hansberry that touches very emotional aspect of human life. The story moves around a poor family who lives on south side of Chicago. The story is very impressive and easy to understand. The family described in the story struggles for their daily needs and maintains dignity along with a dream of better future. The story very effectively describes relationship between family members. The story depicts how conflict arises in a poor family and how different family members react to those conflicts. The story successfully spread its magic on human emotions. This paper intends to discuss dynamics of relationship between men and women presented in the story. The paper further elaborates how relationship between opposite genders evolved throughout the story and challenged traditional gender roles.
Relationship between Men and Women
The story depicts conflict in characters and relation in a way that it always keeps audiences attracted towards it. One very striking aspect of the story is related to role of gender and that how gender does no longer plays any dominant role in men women relationship as it used to play in earlier relationships. In this story, there are women of different generations and all of them have different thoughts about role and importance of gender (Hansberry).
Mama and walter
At present, Mama is head of the family and always thinks that Walter should be head the family because he is a man. She keeps giving example of her husband and taunts Walter for failing in taking charge of the family. Mama is also worried about Walter as she thinks that his behavior is not good with women. Walter does not fulfil her expectations and she feels very upset about his behavior.
Ruth and Walter
Ruth has been portrayed as a wife who does not always give her consent with everything that her husband says or thinks. She wants everybody to feel her existence and especially expects Walter to feel her existence. She reacts badly when she finds that her husband is trying to dominate her. On the other hand she is very calm and conventional. She takes care of her family in the best possible way.
Beneatha and Walter
Beneatha has been portrayed as one who dose not believes in gender discrimination. She even does not like to talk about any such things and reacts badly when her brother stops her from doing anything of her choice. She has dreams for her and when Walter interferes in her dreams, she refuses to listen. When Walter comes to know that his sister wants to be a doctor, he suggests her to be practical and try to be a nurse or marry someone and be a good housewife.
Relationships and Traditional Gender Role
A Raisin in the Sun very beautifully portraits the relationship between men women that changes through the story. At the beginning of story every member of younger’s family was struggling with the life and have a dream of future. Family members were in good relationship. Conflict arises when Mama received insurance check of $10,000. Every member of family has different plans to spend that money. Beneatha wants to spend that money on her medical tuition fee whereas Ruth wants to invest that money in opening a liquor shop. Through the story women plays a major role in keeping their family together. Mama, mother of Ruth gives importance to her family and wants them to follow traditional values so that all members of family remain in healthy relationship. Mama wants her place always clean. She gives importance to her old generation beliefs which depicted in the story when she rejected Beneatha’s un-Christian emotions for good, and Ruth’s abortion news also disappointed her. Mama teaches male and female members of family about morals and traditional beliefs (Domina and Hansberry).
Walter is the men of family who wants to be rich quickly. Walt is a rebellious husband, caring father and aggressive brother. Walter is hero and at the same villain of the story. During the story Walter tries to identify different ways to fulfill requirements of his family. Most of his actions hurt whole family but at the end of the story Walter realized his mistakes and become real man of the family. He was a dominating husband and brother who try to disobey women of the family. Walter reflects African-American men of middle twentieth century. Walter never paid attentions to the concerns of women of the family. He always fights and argues with the family members which show his frustration of not being rich. When he starts listening to women of family he realized that owning a home is more essential than being rich.
Beneatha is a liberal woman who wants to be a doctor. She does not believe in old African-American traditions. During the story she had two boyfriends Asagai and George. George never made her happy by mocking her brother’s education and economical status. On the other hand Asagai, a Nigerian tough her not to forget original roots and values. Asagai always made her happy by telling him importance of family, values and traditions over money. Asagai wants Beneatha to be less independent that made her angry. However at the end of story Beneatha realized that she is dependent on her brother and insurance money to achieve her dreams. This fact brought her more close to family members especially Walter and she realized his abilities.
Ruth depicted traditional African-American values during the play. She is a woman who always emphasized on maintaining balance, and peace in the family. She also decided to go for abortion in order to maintain functioning of family. During the story she also had shown her disagreement with her husband in low voice. Ruth is a good wife, and good mother who prefer welfare of family. Asagai, another character in the story, reflects true African values. Asagai is boyfriend of Beneatha, always wanted her to be true African and go back to the Africa to serve local community. He disappointed Beneatha due to his conservative approach.
The story presents a practical and emotional account of a family that struggles with lack of resources. Issues like gender discrimination and individual aspirations are portrayed in a manner that catches attention of people and also makes tem to correlate the events of the story with their own life. Poverty is a curse and the story has successfully portrayed how the life is without money and resources.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New Jersey: Research & Education Assoc, 1994.
Lynn Domina and Lorraine Hansberry. Understanding A raisin in the sun: a student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents. USA: Greenwood Press, 1998.
