It is a common experience: a woman dates a man who is rude to everyone except for her. He makes her feel special, but a few months later, he becomes an abusive, controlling boyfriend. Walter Younger from the play “A Raisin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, while not an abusive person is a milder example of this phenomenon. He is the father in a large African American family, and lives with his mother, sister, wife, and young son. His father has recently died, and his mother, Lena, receives an enormous check from their life insurance. They need this money, as they live in a small house and need to move to a larger one, but Walter wants to invest the money into opening a liquor store instead. Although the play seems to revolve around him, Walter …show more content…
However, a few days after the insurance check arrives, Ruth gets a call from Walter’s employer, who tells her that Walter has not shown up to work, and that he is about to lose his job. When asked about where he has been going instead of working, he retorts ,“I borrowed Willy Harris car and I went for a drive...and I parked the car and I sat and looked at the steel mills all day long...then I drove back and I went to the Green Hat” (II. ii, 545), and describes many other pointless endeavours. The Green Hat is Walter’s favorite bar, and he spends an immense amount of time there. He knows that his family is poor and needs money, but he chooses to not work, and is, in short, taking money from the family. Three days pay is a significant amount of money to lose, especially because Walter spends money to occupy himself in other ways. Due to the amount of time he spends at this bar, it can be assumed that he gets extremely intoxicated, and should not be trusted to make big decisions. Lena ignores this and gives him a large part of the insurance money, which he then loses to a scam. However, he does have a solution: to sell the new house his mother had bought with the rest of the money. He plans to sell it to Mr. Lindner,
Having an older sibling is rough already, but having a brother that you have to worry about him breaking in and stealing valuables of your own, that's tough and the main character Gordie Jessup has to deal with the betrayal of his older brother, Chase Jessup everyday throughout Katherine Holubitskys’s novel “Tweaked”. Gordie’s efforts trying to fix his family are overwhelmed by Chase’s drug addiction and money debts he has with his dealers. There are many themes throughout the book.
Walter Lee is stubborn, very ambitious, and filled with pride at the beginning of the story. He strives for success with the money “Mama,” also known as Lena got from the life insurance from her husband who recently passed away. Walter was so selfish all he wanted was to provide a better life for he and his family because he was not satisfied with their current standards of living. He wants more and wishes to become rich because he believes he never had enough growing up, but at the same time he wants to provide money and societal respect for his family. He put his trust with the money into a person who betrayed him and he ended up losing it all including his sisters schooling money. After this scene in the play Walter was at his lowest point,
Every black male's plight in America can be regarded as a provider for his family. However, society does not afford black males the benefit of feeling secure about providing for their families. It can be easy for anyone to criticize society and place the blame on America for not affording Walter the opportunities of his white counterparts. Walter does not have control over his own responsibilities. Therefore, if he was given all the resources needed to provide his family his poor judgement and lack of business sense would create further stress on the family. Ruth, Mama, and his sister Beanetha attack him from every angle about his doubtful ideals. Ironically, those ideals are what Walter needs to shape and justify his manhood. Without ideals and proper resources to obtain them, a man's existence can be regarded as insignificannot
Mark Smith's novel 'The Road to Winter' explores the behaviours of characters after their experiences of loss, and their ability to persevere whilst trying to continue to act to their own ethical principles. The protagonist of the novel, Finn, is one of the many who have lost their family and way of life to the deadly disease that has ravaged the world, yet has managed to survive without much external help and relative isolation. Whilst he has managed to keep his benevolent
The text suggest Mary was r**** by Mr Neal just as one of her friends were...
To Kill a Mockingbird is the story of the trial of a black man, Tom Robinson for the raping of a white woman, Mayella Ewell, in racist Alabama in the 1990’s.
Walter asserting his manhood against his mother’s matriarchal dominance can be seen as the principal conflict in Hansberry’s work. Walter’s mother in settled in her traditional and old schools ways and views masculinity as a life-affirming Black tradition, whereas Walter equates manhood and masculinity with how much money one has and being his family’s sole provider. When Walter’s father died his mother received $10,000 in life insurance payments. She takes a portion of the money and uses it to purchase a house in a well-established suburban white neighborhood. In terms of the remaining money, Walter wanted to invest in a liquor store. After much persuading, Mama finally gives in and gives Walter the rest of the money. When the investment goes belly up Walter loses all the money. His attempt to establish his manhood ironically made him
The Younger family has not been able to experience the finer things in life, and Walter, being the authoritative male figure, feels he is at fault knows that a change is needed. Walter’s solution is to use his father’s life insurance money to fund the acquiring of a liquor license. The women of the household are always ordering around Walter. It’s Ruth, Mama, or Beneatha telling him how to run things, and when he gets a chance to take the initiative by using the money to invest in his liquor license, his friend betrays him, and his dreams are crushed.
When Walter loses all his money, he’s willing to lose his dignity and be more aggressive to earn it back. We see this when the money is stolen Walters and how it affects Walters view of manhood when he says, “Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the “tooken.” (He laughs) I’ve figured it out finally. (He looks around at them) Yeah. Some of us always getting “tooken.” (He laughs) ….But I’ll say one thing for old Willy Harris ... he’s taught me something. He’s taught me to keep my eye on what counts in this world” (141). Walter is willing to go against his morals to get what he wants in life, He takes now and apologizes later, whereas the tooken think through ramifications of their actions and don’t act. After the money is stolen, he is willing to take and win, whereas he had
No matter how hard they try, there are some people who cannot get ahead in life. Walter Lee Younger is a man who is frustrated with his current position in life, and every disappointment he has encountered thus far. Although he tries to be a loving man, sometimes he does not know how to show the idea of love, 'Sometimes...sometimes...I don't even know how to try' (Hansberry 89). His position in life can be regarded as symbolic of every black male struggling to provide for his family by any means necessary. Although Walter has a job, it seems inadequate for his survival. As a result, he has become frustrated and lacks good judgement. Throughout this play Walter searches
In the novel Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys, a teenage girl named Lina Vilkas is thrust into the Holocaust by the unforgiving NKVD. This novel tells the tale of the little-known side of the Holocaust that took place in the Soviet Union and Baltics. The book follows Lina through long weeks in cattle cars, many months of fear in the camps, and near-starvation and death in Siberia. Throughout the novel, Sepetys expresses two main themes: wisdom can be gained by observing ignorance, and traumatic moments lead to strength.
Both Dade and Julian where fixated on proving themselves right and defending their beliefs about
Then when he does fail he blames his failures on other people who are close to him, this is shown when he makes the remark of, "No thanks to the colored women." (Hansberry 35). Walter fails to understand that his wife gives him continual support, which ties into one of his "harmatias" which is his ability to make rash decisions. Ruth, is a very important character in this story for the fact that she has the opportunity to do something amazing, that is go to medical school. But in Walters' everlasting foolishness invests in a liquor store instead of her college funds. It is this rash decision made by him that causes feuds within the family.
The story “A Raisin In The Sun” is based off a fight for equality in the Southside of Chicago by the Younger family struggling to fulfil their dreams. Taking place in the aftermaths of WW2, and the present time between the 1940s and 1958, the Youngers experience racial tension just as they thought their lives were getting better. In Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin In The Sun”, Beneatha undergoes a change of heart, revealing her true feelings and perspective of her now, long gone future and ambitions she had dreamt for her whole life.
Part one takes place in the early 1960’s where we are introduced to a girl named Mariam, an illegitimate child born because of an affair. She lives in a small village just outside Herart with her mother Nana, she only sees her father, Jalil, once a week. As Mariam grows older she discovers she wants an education and a connection to her half siblings. She tries to go into Herart one day just to get kicked to the curb and forced to sleep on the street unlike the promise of going to see a movie with Jalil originally was. When she returns home the next day she finds her mother, Nana, hanging from a tree. After news of Nana’s death reaches Jalil, he then has no other choice but to bring Mariam into their home. After a week of being in their home they announce to Mariam they will be marrying her off to a man named Rasheed.