Characters Dreams Deferred in Raisin In The Sun :: Lorraine Hansberry

Although Mama, Ruth, Beneatha and Walter all live in the same house, there dreams are all different. All the characters want to for fill there dream but, what happens if these dream are deferred? Mama is the head of the house. She dreams that her family will be happy and that her children have the best life they can have. She does what ever she can to make her children’s dreams come true. Ruth is Walter's wife. Her dream is to have a happy family but she also wants to be wealthy. Beneatha is Mama’s daughter. She wants to become a doctor when she gets out of college. She also wants to save her race from ignorance. Walter is Mama’s oldest son. His dreams are to be wealth but at the same time wanting to provide for his family. His own personal dream is to open liquor store with his money he receives from Mama. In ‘A Raisin in the Sun’, Lorraine Hansberry describes each of the family’s dreams and how they are deferred. In the beginning of the play Lorraine Hansberry chose Langston Hughes’s poem to try describe what the play is about and how, in life, dreams can sometimes be deferred. Mama’s dreams were first deferred when she moved into the small apartment that the Youngers family stay in through out most of the play. She became too busy that she couldn’t accomplish her dream. She also could not for fill her dreams since she did not have enough money to do so. Her dreams were even more shattered with the death of her husband, but when she got the money from her husband’s death her dreams then became a reality again. Mama wants Travis to be happy and play in the garden but she cannot do this since they live in a dirty ghetto. Ruth, whose dreams are the same as Mama’s, get deferred when the family are forced into there small apartment and there lack of money. Since she has no money she can not help her family as much as she would like to. Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor. She believes that her dream was deferred when she was born since she is coloured and a female. Although she fights this, her dream is deferred even more when Walter looses the money which she needed to get into medical school. The final character is Walter. Although he has other minor dream such as opening liquor store, he has long dreamed of making his family’s life better.