Orchestrated by Langston Hughes, “Harlem” refers to dreams that have been put on hold or when their dreams fail to become reality. “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run?” The Younger family have the dream of transcending the “American Dream.” They continually need to water and nurture their dream lest it dries up and shrivels up like “A Raisin in the Sun.” Through the manipulation of dialogue, argument and cynicism, Lorraine Hansberry fluently describes the drams of the Younger family and how their dreams became “deferred.”
Initially by way of example, Mama’s dreams were the first deferred when she moved into the cramped apartment complex, becoming too busy having to deal with the constant bickering of Walter and his sister and trying to think of a proper environment of Ruth’s unborn child. that she couldn’t accomplish her dream and not being able to have sufficient funds to do so it seems as if her dreams where shattered the most by the death of her husband. However, once receiving the insurance money from her husband’s death her dreams became reality again. Finally Travis will be able to run around in a garden and have his own room but can’t fulfill that since they lived in the ghetto.
Likewise, Beneatha, Walter’s sister had aspired to become a doctor but in those times women of color weren’t considered of obtaining such high positions to where the usual standpoint is becoming a nurse. Hansberry’s use of argument is potent because it shows how stressful it is for the whole family to be able to provide for Beneatha’s education and how this is causing such tension between her and her brother Walter.
Walter: How is school coming?”
Beneatha: “Lovely, Lovely. And you know, biology is the greatest. I dissected something that looked just like you yesterday.”
Walter:” Have we figured out yet