Preview

Rasin in the Sun Walter Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
844 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Rasin in the Sun Walter Character Analysis
Walter Character Analysis

Walter Character Analysis

Depression is ongoing feelings of hopelessness, sadness, unhappiness, and causes a bleak outlook on life. When someone is suffering from depression they cannot be at the top of their game. A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959, which was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. The story is based upon the family getting an insurance check; from Walter senior’s death, and the troubles of an African American family in the 1950’s. One Character, Walter shows almost every sign of depression throughout the play. He uses bad cooping skills, like alcohol, hurting his family meanwhile. Walter begins the play, as an unhappy man who is selfish but later matures into a better husband, father, and head of the household. When someone is unhappy, they tend to make impulsive decisions. In the case of Walter Lee Younger, he follows those footsteps. He proves that statement to be true when he tells the character Mama, also know as “Lena Younger” how he feel his job is nothing, saying, “…Mama, that ain’t no kind of job… that ain’t nothing at all” (Hansberry 73). When Walter is talking to Mama about his future, he tells her he feels as if it’s, “ … a big, looming blank space- full of nothing” (73). That darkness he is showing in that conversation proves to us, that he is very unhappy where his life currently stands. The unhappiness he is experiencing now will later help him become a stronger man. Throughout the play, Walter shows the audience that he is a very selfish man, who will do whatever to get his way. In the beginning of the play, Walter says while talking to Ruth “I got me a dream” (33). He wants to buy a liquor store with his father’s $10,000 life insurance money, he tells Ruth, “…the initial investment on the place be ‘bout thirty thousand, …that be ten thousand each” (33). Walter is oblivious that Mama and Ruth want a house, and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The play a Raisin in the Sun is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry. This story is about an African American family living in Southside Chicago. In the story, the family goes through many hardships especially when it comes to money. The Younger family lives in an overcrowded apartment which has very little room for all of them. There is a $10,000 check coming from the insurance company for Walter Lee’s dad’s death. He is the man of the house now and is determined to provide a better life for him and his family. Which he figures out at the end that money is not everything.…

    • 519 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Walter Younger’s desires are complex and it gets to a point where his desires become a threat to him. “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…” (Hansberry 73). Walter apprises Mama this after he feels ignored when he attempts to explain the plan he has to open a liquor store with his friends, Willy and Bobo. Walter is beginning to understand how his dream deferred is affecting him. Walter not being able to achieve this goal not only affects him but it affects the ones around him as he changes the mood of the family when he has his temper tantrums when he doesn’t get it his…

    • 114 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everybody had dreams and aspirations, however those things never always go as planned. This happens to the characters in the play, A Raisin in the Sun. The play was written by Lorraine Hansburry, and it was the first Broadway play written by an African American woman. In the play, the Younger family, a family of five, live in a small two-bedroom apartment in Chicago. Mama, Lena, is about to receive an insurance check from her husband's death in the mail and has to decide what she is going to do with it. The check is seen as a beacon of hope to change their family's lives and make it much easier. Lena's son, Walter, wants to use it to leave his old job as a chauffer for a white man and invest in a liquor store, while Lena's daughter, Beneatha, wants to use it to help pay for her education to become a doctor. In the end, Mama entrusts some money to Walter and decides to buy a house in a white neighborhood to better accommodate their family because Walter's son had been sleeping on the living room couch. Walter's wife, Ruth, also goes through her own problems when she learns that she is expecting another child in a household that is already having a hard time getting by. A Raisin in the Sun is a great play that encompasses many themes of the African American working class culture in the United States. The play goes over important themes such as family, dreams, gender, race, and suffering, and A Raisin in the Sun connects all these themes to each other some way or another.…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Albert Einstein once said “Try not to become a man of success rather try to become a man of value.” A Raisin In the Sun was written by Lorraine Hansberry in nineteen fifty nine.The play explores the struggles of an African American family to achieve their dreams. In the play Walter Lee Younger Jr. the son of Mama(Lena) evolves throughout the trials and tribulations the family faces in the play.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During act one, scene one, when Walter first mentions his liquor store idea to Ruth, he insults women just because Ruth does not approve of his idea. Ruth clearly insults his idea by calling it a graft, which causes Walter to respond with “Don't call it that. See there, that just goes to show you what women understand about the world” (11).This just shows how stubborn and childlike he was. If he really wanted Ruth to approve and encourage him on his liquor store idea, he would have just accepted that and talked to her about it again later. He did not have to insult women just because Ruth did not agree with his idea. No one in his family was agreeing with his dream of owning a liquor store, therefore, he became independent and still tried to…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the course of A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the main character, Walter Younger, struggles with immense moral conflicts. As a result of Walter ejecting a white man from his house and, consequently, fighting racism, it becomes evident that he has matured and adopted the role of head of household. In the beginning of the play, it is shown that Walter selfishly dreams about providing for his family and releasing them from the demons of poverty. When Mama gains a great deal of insurance money, Walter desires to build a liquor store and when she puts a down payment on a house instead, he is deeply saddened. He decides to hurt his mother by saying that she ruined his life, which is an extremely childish reaction: “You run our lives like you want to. It was your…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is realistic fiction in which the play's title and characters represent the play's themes. The play focused on black Americans struggles to reach the American Dream of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness during the 1950’s and 1960’s. the idea of everyone having a the chance to achieve a better life should exist. Hansberry created her title using a line from Langston Hughes poem “ A Dream Deferred”. The original poem was written in 1951 about Harlem. Hughes line from the poem claimed that when dreams are deferred they become broken. This meant that they are lost/hopeless. Hughes poem further suggested that when dreams and goals are denied to be pursued people forget about them and put them off.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Big Walter Masculinity

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mama says that big Walter “worked himself to death” just so he can support his family. Walter has troubles supporting his family because he is trying to be the best man in his eyes which is hurting the family. Walter wants to be a rich successful man and can give whatever his family wants. Walter sets his mind on his liquor store and he will do whatever it takes for it. Walter wants to have this liquor really bad that the money Mama gave him and spent it all on his store and didn’t even get the store.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I finished A Raisin in the Sun, I sat back and reflected on the primary thematic messages the author had shown. One of the themes I came across was the strength of a dream. Throughout the play, you are reminded of every dream each character has. Beneatha yearns to have a medical degree and become a doctor while Mama’s dream is for her children to be humble and grateful in a new home. Walter’s dream is to open up a liquor store and make money for his family to have a “better” life. Early on in the story, readers find out that Mama has a large check coming from her late husband’s life insurance. This excitement starts to create a large uproar of arguments in the family. The arguments ranged from Walter and Ruth to Mama and Walter to…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Walter was so desperate he often fights and argues with Ruth, Mama, and Beneatha. Also a thing that makes him like that is the racism at that time he often see who the White people from high social status had everything they want, kids attended different schools, neighborhoods were separate from the other, that also made him be like that. He was so desperate he inks to a new low and calls Mr. Lindner back, saying that he'll accept the Money, a think his family was not agree with. This is…

    • 786 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A raisin in the sun

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born May 19, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois the youngest by seven years, of four children. Her father, Carl A. Hansberry, is a successful real estate broker, and a civil right activist. Her mother, Nannie Perry, is a schoolteacher who entered politics and became a ward committee woman. When Lorraine was eight, her parents moved to a white neighborhood where the experiences of discrimination led to a civil rights suit that they won. The granddaughter of a freed slave and deeply committed to the Black struggle for equality and human rights, Lorraine Hansberry became a spokesperson for black Americans. Her writings reflect her fight for black civil rights, which is reflected by her views against racism and sexual and statutory discrimination. A Raisin in the Sun was first produced in 1959. The play personified many of the issues which were to divide American culture during the decade of the 1960s. Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright, was an unknown dramatist until she achieved unprecedented success when her play became a Broadway sensation. Not only were successful women playwrights rare at the time, but successful young black women playwrights were virtually unheard of. Within its context, the success of A Raisin in the Sun is particularly stunning. She used plot characters and setting to embody the struggles Blacks had to overcome while facing discrimination and an underlying desire to succeed beyond conception. The play occurs during the late 1950s, a time when many Americans were prosperous and when some racial questions were beginning to be raised, but before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is an excellent theory to analyze A Raisin in the Sun since needs and wants are the basics to human survival. Its core is that of humankind equality which crosses geographic, racial, gender, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. The situational setting of A Raisin in the Sun makes Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lorraine Hansberry portrays the revolution of black’s consciousness through the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by introducing the Younger family to readers. This play takes place in a poor black neighborhood in Chicago’s Southside in the 1950s where the Younger family struggles with racial discrimination and finding their true dreams and goals. Like most literature, this play has a clear protagonist, but Hansberry also uses an anti-hero, a flawed character who lacks heroic qualities, but with whom the reader still sympathizes and who eventually redeems himself through a heroic act or decision. With the weight of his deferred dreams upon his shoulders, Walter Lee Younger digs himself into a massive pit of troubles but slowly redeems himself by realizing the wrongs of his actions, making him the anti-hero of this play.…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Money corrupts Walter but his obsession is out of love, he wants the best for his family, wants his son to become something more than him. Ruth urges Mama to give Walter a chance about his investment scheme. She feels like “something is happening” (page 42) between the couple and that Walter “needs this chance”(page 42) to restore his self-esteem and repair the rift in their marriage. Mama eventually gives Walter a chance to proceed with his investment. Things begin to lighten up between Walter and Ruth. Walter is finally feeling financially secure and invites Ruth to the movies. Like young lovers, they felt remembering old…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raisin In The Sun

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    March 11, 1959 was the first Broadway debut of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. The play was considered a racial milestone of the time. Stated by The Washington Post, “Its impact on an artistic level had a power like Brown v. Board of Education or Jackie Robinson. It was a moment in theatrical history both epic and serene” (Washington Post 1). A Raisin in the Sun is about a 1950’s African-American family trying to reach their dreams and obtain a better life for themselves. Lorraine Hansberry uses this play as a way to show the struggles of African-American families trying to move towards a better life.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He is also passionate, ambitious, and bursting with the energy of his dream. As he saw everything all starting to slip away, he exploded at mama for taking away his chance at a future filled with possibility and money. Now that Walter friend took his money and ran off with it, Walter is desperate. He sinks to a new low and calls Mr.Lindner.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays