The Unconditional Bond of Family
Dense metropolitan areas were rapidly colonizing as 1950s America exemplified a prolonged and radical cultural transformation necessary for all to enjoy prosperity. America upheld the impression of hope for centuries; yet not all the inhabitants of land of the free cooperatively supported equal rights. The mere confidence in holding on to a dream became difficult for individuals, as well as families, as unremitting rejection from society left many in poverty. Subordination of minorities in American generated a strenuous struggle by both African-Americans and numerous white Americans advocates who endorse the termination of racism and encourage egalitarianism. The awe-inspiring production A Raisin in the Sun became renowned as a historical reenactment of a handful of people most personal, influential, monumental, life altering moments in life that occur within their home. The play epitomizes real life’s situations about overcoming obstacles, defining one’s distinctive way of life, and handling idiosyncratic conditions at home in a reconstruction of the fictitious Younger family who animate life in 1950s America, moreover Chicago. The play was created by an African-American writer Lorraine Hansberry in 1959 who advocated for human rights which consists of racial minorities and women. In the day to day reality of the Younger’s situation, Mama, Beneatha, Ruth and Walter are able to come together in harmony realizing that together they are stronger than they are separately.
The moral in A Raisin in the Sun, publicized through the Younger family, epitomizes the magnanimous gesture of gratitude and devotion to always love your family, the people you are already given in life to be a companion. The characters in the story have very different personalities which lead to a family dynamic that evolves into a common acceptance by the end. Each has individual dreams and desires that selfishly overpower each other’s position to gain agreement. Nevertheless, unconditional love binds this family together incessantly. Regardless of difference in dreams, each person possesses the hope that a revolution is before them; hope that a worthy life is ahead of them. Though independently they appear to be unstable to suffer the agony of rejection from not only society but their family; together they get they always have someone there for them. However if someone loses both society and family, what does one have left to be afraid of?
Untraditional actions in A Raisin in the Sun give the impression of commonality in the Younger’s household. In this family’s unfortunate situation they reside in an uncomfortable, tiny, two bedroom apartment with five occupants in the south side of Chicago. Although appearing to be unconventional, each family member resembles something unique. Mama (Lena) exudes confidence because she knows it was not what her ancestors had done that made her life difficult but what her generation and younger generations have not yet accomplished. Mama is traditional in speech yet an astonishing revolution for a woman. A household was once a man’s territory to oversee; now a home could be for a woman to resourcefully sustain as well. Even though Mama believes she is traditional, her actual life represents something different. She is independently in charge of providing wisdom to all who are around her in addition to managing the family. Head-strong and intelligent as Mama is, she did not grasp the concept that her daughter Beneatha was attempting to embrace life, an American dream. Beneatha lead a swiftly changing day to day lifestyle did so by not looking too far ahead or backwards while in pursuit of her dream regardless of influencers. Neither did Mama’s son Walter during his quest to invest in a profitable liquor store with a “friend”.
The movement away from the values of what the Younger’s lineage use to abide to is unsettling with Mama as her offspring mature. Change was not simple for Mama since she meticulously hung onto insecurities of her past. Author Yomna Saber explores the difference between assimilation and immigration in Hansberry’s play asserting the fact Mama has a barricade to overcome, “Having escaped the South only to live the Chicagoan ghettoes, she clings to the idea of a decent house and the salvation promised by religion. She finds her children’s dreams hard to comprehend” (Saber 485). Unable to move on from what is in her past Mama continues to believe in a future. Nevertheless she clasps on too tightly to what she thinks is attainable forever; a traditional cohesive family who believe in God and ownership of a firm piece of land. Over time Mama remains uncertain how to communicate with her children who were not only reared by her “traditional” ways but in a period of optimism for individuality. She conflicts with the American culture and the dreams of her children yet she is a huge asset to the binding of the family. Mama brings everyone together overlooking what they dream to be but who they are within the family through unconditional love because Mama never reprimands them for mistakes.
Everyday Mama visualized a place to call home on a piece of land to claim as her own. Mama acknowledged that attention and nurture were the basic need to sustaining life. Thus she put her energy immediately into her attention to the nurturing of her plant in the kitchen windowsill when she enters the play (Hansberry 619). Upfront she is recognized for her devotion to family through Hansberry overt symbolism of the plant. The cherished flower signifies the impact of a budding family affected by generation after generation. Moreover, the attention given fosters the same commitment in the future. Furthermore the inescapable neglect by the sunlight and overcrowded room, the plant still flourishes into a beautiful and magnificent formation of continuous existence. While Mama cannot always fathom her children’s way of life, she knows deep down she keeps infusing respectable morals inside each of them. Ruth contends to that by reinforcing Mama’s head-strong personality which gleams bright inside her children, Beneatha (Bennie) and Walter Lee, “You just got strong-willed children and it takes a strong women like you to keep ém in hand” ( Hansberry 627). The bolstering that Mama shapes her offspring as upright individuals emphasizes the notion that a good, positive and respectable family dynamic benefits the underpinning for an equal America. If Mama can take care of her family by love and nourishment than American can take care of their family by showing support and acceptance of the inevitable need to help one another. The decision to generously help out someone other than yourself breeds an empathetic frame of mind which cultivates for a better life for everyone –especially in America.
A stable home is everything Mama has faith in to make her family complete. Her positive influence as a caretaker is appreciated, but her actions at home raise disparity among family members to live up to an image of what they should eventually be. Beneatha wants independence in her own way and that surely differed from Mama’s. Their personalities clash because of who they dream to be and who they are presently. Yet the mother and daughter are quite similar because they both dream, a blessing of hopefulness passed down one generation to the next. Beneatha is attempting to create her own path to self-discovery while never losing sight of her heritage or immediate family.
Beneatha begins seeing a Nigerian man named Asagai who fully embraces his native culture. Mama finds it odd that he is so in sync with his heritage yet he lives in America trying to convert her daughter to naïve old ways of life. Beneatha, while trying to clinch onto all the dignity she has left says, “An end to misery! To stupidity! Don’t you see there isn’t any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us- our own little mirage that we think is the future” (674). Asagai rebuts her assertion about living on a path that goes around and around multiple times never getting anywhere but back to the beginning. Mama becoming in charge undeniably changed the circle of life for the Younger family. However, overall Beneatha believes humans willingly prance around waiting for the image of their future to become reality but it will not with pessimism. Asagai tells Beneatha,
What you just said -- about the circle. It isn’t a circle -- it is simply a long line – as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end -- we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd but those who see the changes – who dream, who will not give up – are called idealists… and those who see only the circle -- we call them the “realists”! (674).
The Younger’s, the African-American community, as well as the white community all have dreams. Americans are idealists. The people who make up the umbrella term of Americans are the underpinning of aspirations and freedom to believe in what you love. Asagai bares truth to the fact that life is never going to walk the same path twice. So if you keep progressing and moving forward to your dream then the line of life is never ending. The unconditional love within the family, for example the love between Beneatha and her mother, echoed in Asagai speech that life moves forward as people walk onward with the people whom they love.
Hansberry herself echoed the dangers society bestows upon generation after generation. Change cannot happen unless people are willing to let it happen. As a child Hansberry grew up on the south side of Chicago with her mother and father allowing her personal reflection to play a key role in development of her novel. Analytical writer Kristin Matthews justifies a “home” in A Raisin in the Sun by stating:
It is well known that Hansberry’s family was personally acquainted with the violence inherent in property ownership in Chicago. In the 1930s, the Hansberrys tried to move into a “restricted” area and faced vigilante violence, with Lorraine herself narrowly escaping being struck on the head by a brick. Her father’s legal challenge to restrictive racial covenants that attempted to prevent “inharmonious racial groups” from entering into white neighbourhoods (Ritzdorf 283) went all the way to the Supreme Court, and Mr. Hansberry’s 1940 victory had great symbolic if not actual meaning (Matthews 556).
Areas that appear as “restricted” to African-Americans highlighted upon the fact there is no such thing as “unattainable” in America. If you want something, you fight for it. If you lose, you get back up and keep trying until you win your battle. No one willingly gave the Younger’s their home; the fact that they came together to own a home is their wonderful life story. It did not matter who lived on either side of them. It mattered that they had a safe home to call their own. Walter Lee had a vision of entrepreneurship that his mother and Beneatha could not fully come to terms with. Family plays a key role in how Walter went about his investment; would his luck be different without his family? Walter seemed to consider trusting a friend over family more vigorous to his path to success. However dependence seemed to fall short in time of need. His investment with friends failed when Willy ran away with the investment money for something he personally thought was more suitable for himself. Self-motivations block gratefulness and obligations of friends, which in the end make it all more difficult for everyone. Walter protests as Bobo tells him the manner that he was left for six hours awaiting on Willy’s arrival, “Gone, what do you mean Willy is gone? Gone where? You mean he went by himself. You mean he went off to Springfield by himself—to take care of getting the license… you know Willy got his own ways…” (Hansberry 670), in an attempt to justified his letdown. Walter is so let down by his friend he fails to see how his family never let him down. Mama allows him to try and make something of himself, Beneatha never stops him and Travis is proud of his father. Walter knows he messed up but has a fall back. He has his family that he will never lose if they all stick together and live together forever.
The racial discrimination that the family faced has strengthened their relationship and has allowed them to take a stand against their own humanity. When life throws people unpredictable complications, a family can come together by believing in one another to accomplish their goals and confront the world’s harsh realities. Scholor Catherine Gunther Kodat once said, “Colorblind” policies cast racism almost exclusively as a problem between individuals, where institutional racism does exist, it is now primarily through those “civil rights remedies and mechanisms for achieving racial equality” (Kodat 153). The revolution of equality took many years to come to the forefront since people cannot easily alter their perspective of different ethnic groups. Hansberry’s work was just in presenting the reality of life from a different perspective. Acceptance that America is a multi-cultural, ever expanding land that no one person can change is vital to the future prosperity for our homeland of the free. Mama, Benetha and Walter define themselves as individuals and as a family unit through unconditional love and support during this tumultuous time.

Works Cited

Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” Literature The Human Experience with reading and writing. Ed. Richard Abcarian. Boston: Bedford/ST. Martin’s, 2007. 609-683. Print.

Kodat, Catherine Gunther. “Confusion in a Dream Deferred: Context and Culture in Teaching A Raisin in the Sun.” Literary Imagination 31.1, Spring 1998: ebscohost.com. November 20th, 2012.149-163. Web.

Matthews, Kristin. “The Politics of “Home” in Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun.” Literature 1 December 2008: 556-576. web.ebscohost.com. 20 Nov., 2012. Web.

Ritzdorf, Thomas. Urban Planning and the African American Community. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997. 20. Nov., 2012. Web.

SABER, YOMNA. "Lorraine Hansberry: Defining The Line Between Integration And Assimilation." Women's Studies 39.5 (2010): 451-469. Academic Search Complete. 13 Nov., 2012. Web.