The award winning play/novel “a Raisin in the Sun ” written by Lorraine Hansberry is undoubtobly a classic, inspiring generations of readers to truly inform themselves on the social and economic issues affecting african americans. Hansberry starts us in a worn down apartment that, in her words, “the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope—and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride.” (page 24) In other words, at one point in time the apartment and its furniture was picked out with genuine love and hope, but, as like many of the dreams these characters had, it passed them by and in the current day it’s ragged and clearly overused. I find the relationship between Walter and Ruth, as well as both of their relationships with Mama to truly show the extent of sadness that hangs over the house due to defferred dreams. We see through the dialogue Hansberry writes for Ruth that, while she is putting up a brave face in the first scene for those around her, she is clearly unhappy with where she is in life and how her and her family have turned out. Whether that is anyones fault or not isnt necessarily the point in this instance, it’s just to point out how crushed her spirit seems to be when we first meet her. Despite the description of her telling us that in her youth she was a vibrant beautiful woman, it seems life has passed her by, or at least she thinks it has. Between pages 28-30, I believe we see a perfect example of my point with how she awakens her son and husband. It’s almost robotic for her at this point. “Come on now, boy, it’s seven thirty! (Her son sits up at last, in a stupor of sleepiness) I say hurry up, Travis! You ain’t the only person in the world got to use a bathroom!” (Pages 28-29) This is followed by a constant barrage of yells at her husband to awake, despite the bathroom not even being open yet, showing us just how used to Walters rough mornings she is and how sick and tired they all are of living the way they do. Walter even asks Ruth later in the scene multiple times “What’s the matter?” and continuously responded with “Nothing.” Because to Ruth there really is nothing wrong, she has unfortunately seemed to accept her, and her family’s place in the world and doesnt want to take any risks with her husband. Even if her reasons for saying no to Walter are valid it shows a lack of willpower that many might have felt at the time due to the terrible circumstances they were placed in. Later in the scene we see Walter and Ruth having an argument over Walter wanting to possibly go into business with a few friends and using “the check” Mama is supposed to get as a jumping off place. It seems, immediately, that this is not the first time Walter has brought something like this to Ruth. And it is implied that Walter’s plans are never well thought out, or actually possible. But this one doesnt seem all that crazy, and Ruth just continuously shoots him down until Walter begins to question why “His Woman” does’nt blindly support him on anything he wants to do. Showing another big issue with some of the characters in this book, misogyny. What these examples are showing is a larger, overarching issue of how our country was at the time of this play. The system was rigged, and the “American Dream” told them that as long as they worked hard and stayed out of trouble they would be ok. But despite every single one of the members of Mama’s family being extremely hard working, they barely get by in the most basic of living quarters. They share a bathroom with other families, which Walter seems to have a lot of issues with. The house is way too small for the amount of people living in it, and beyond that, they can barely afford the extras on top of that. All while both Walter and Ruth work and Travis even makes some extra change holding groceries, and Mama has her big check. They still can very rarely afford anything, with my example being Ruth saying no to her son asking for 50 cents when he needed it for school. Even though Walter ends uo giving it to him because he doesnt want his son to know about the family’s money struggles, it’s hard to hide it from him with the way that they live.
In conclusion, the relationship between Ruth and Walter, to me, perfectly shows what themes Lorraine Hansberry was trying to convey. With the ideas of money troubles being a constant talking point with the two, as well as bickering over how they share those troubles with their son. And the Mother who still lives with them as well has her own very strong opinions on how they should handle things, even if being a little old school. Each character provides a different look into life during this time period and shows the themes presented by Hansberry.
Skip to content