In “A Raisin in the Sun,” Lorainne Hansberry writes about a hard-working African American family, the Youngers, living in South side Chicago. Mama, Walter, and Beneatha each have their own dreams that they want to pursue. Mama dreams of moving out of their worn-out apartment and moving into a house with a garden and backyard of her own. Mama has a plant that she takes care of that represents an important symbol in the play. The plant represents the hopes of Mama achieving her dream where she can have her own house and a garden. Mama wants a better life for her and her family. Throughout the play we constantly see Mama putting her children’s hopes and aspirations first. Even though Mama has her own hopes and dreams, she wants to make sure her children can live a better life then she did.
Throughout the play we see Mama’s plant representing the Youngers deferred dreams. Mama has always dreamt of owning her own house, but her dreams have always been pushed aside. She takes care of the plant like how she takes care of her family. The plant also signifies Mama’s dreams of owning a garden one day. Mama says “well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one” (Hansberry, 53). Since she does not have her own garden, she settles with the plant instead. She takes pride in this plant, just like she hopes to take pride in owning a house in the future.
Mama is constantly caring for her children and wanting them to reach their full potential in life. Mama says to Ruth, “I spec if it wasn’t for you all… I would just put that money away or give it to the church or something” (Hansberry, 69). Mama wants to provide for her children and give them all that she can. If she did not have a family then she would be putting this insurance money away or donating to the church. She makes sacrifices and puts her children’s dreams ahead of her own. Beneatha plans on becoming a doctor which was rare for an African American woman during this time. Walter wants to invest in a liquor store and be able to support his family. Mama plans to use the insurance money to put a down payment on a house and the rest to go towards Beneatha’s education and Walter’s liquor store investment. We can clearly see a trend of Mama being super supportive of her children’s dreams and revolving her life over them. Mama states “I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really as precious to me… There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else- if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. I paid the man thirty-five hundred dollars down on the house. That leaves sixty-five hundred dollars. Monday morning, I want you to take this money and take three thousand and put it in a savings account for Beneatha’s medical schooling. The rest you put in a checking account-with your name on it” (Hansberry, 107). Mamas’ family is the most important thing to her, and she makes sacrifices to make sure they have the chance to fulfill their dreams. She is willing to give up a substantial portion of the insurance money to help her children have a good future. Even though Mama trusted Walter with the money, he makes a bad decision and ends up losing not only his, but the money that was supposed to go to Beneatha’s education. Mama used another portion of the insurance money to fulfill her goals of owning a house with her family. She will have a garden and a backyard just like she always dreamt of. She wants her family to have opportunities and chances that she never experienced. This was a common occurrence in the time that the scenes were set. African Americans did not get the same opportunities as white people and family was the most important thing to them. Even with her husband’s death Mama wants to make sure her family is set up for a good life and not face any of the hardships that she faced. Ultimately, Mama has a dream of owning her own house, but makes sure her children can fulfill their goals and dedicates her life to her family. She wants the best for her children and tries her best to support their aspirations in any way possible.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think having children can hold you back from achieving your own dreams? Why or why not?
- Is it important to make sacrifices for your loved ones? Similar to Mama sacrificing her money for her children’s future. Even knowing there’s potential risks that could come along with it?
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin! I really love how you used your blog post to talk about the character Mama. I love Mama as a character, she is so selfless, humble, and always put the people she loves before herself which is extremely admirable. Mama will sacrifice everything even with the little she has just in hopes of her family pursuing their dreams, her one goal in life is to steer her family on a path out of this prejudice surrounding their lives in this horrible time period. I Like how you included in your blog post that she used her insurance check to put money down on a house for her family and gave the rest to Walter for the liquor store venture and Beneatha’s education. In this moment where Mama gives Walter the check she says “…What you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. There ain’t nothing as precious to me … There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else—if it means—if it means it’s going to destroy my boy” (Hansberry 106). I
think this is a perfect example of Mamas character. I personally believe that having children can prevent you from achieving your dreams, although with the right circumstances it doesn’t always have to. Once you have children, they are your priority you can’t just think about yourself anymore. You start putting your needs last which could of course hinder you from living out certain dreams that you intended for yourself. I think it is extremely important to make sacrifices for your loved ones. At the end of the day family is most important so sometimes you have to take risks at the chance to better your family even if there with risks involved. Mamas intentions were solely based on helping her family when she entrusted Walter with the insurance money and although that ended up being a bad choice it was a choice made with only good intent.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin! I liked your blog for this week. I agree that Mama pushes her dreams aside to take care of her family. Mama is a selfless and she wants her family to live a better life than she did. For the first discussion question, I think it depends on when you have children in your life if they hold back from you achieving your dreams. I think that people have a mind set of how they want their life to go so they can still achieve the success they want but also still have children. Other times, things don’t work out how we want them to and sometimes people have a child when they aren’t ready or expecting to be caring for a child. I can see how this could impact someone from achieving success and a lot of times, people focus more on their children or child when this happens, putting their dreams on hold. For the second discussion question, I think there are times where you should sacrifice things for your loved ones but for me, it also depends. I would give money to a loved one who need the money for rent, food, that type of thing. If I had a relative that I knew wanted the money for drugs, then I wouldn’t give them the money. When you give someone money, there is always that fear and potential risk that they will use it for something else, instead of what it was intended for. One of the quotes that stood out to me and relates to both discussion questions that Mama says is “there is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing”(pg. 145). This quote stood out to me and relates to both discussion questions because it shows that you should be appreciable and grateful for the things you have. You should love the things you have and if you haven’t learned that, then you haven’t learned anything.
Work cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin I feel like that almost everyone could remember someone in their personal life who reminds them of the character Mama in “A Raisin in the Sun”. What I mean by this is that most people know or have known someone who made sacrifices to benefit their family. Now in regards to your discussion question about if I feel like having a child would affect my dreams, I feel like this is a question that I feel people’s generations affect. In “A Raisin in the Sun” and sometimes in real life people like Walter are a generation that works so they get money “Because it is life…” (Hansberry-74). Then there are people from the generation or raised the was Mama was raised “…Once upon a time freedom used to be life- now its money” (Hansberry-74).
In regards to me I feel like if I would to have a child, I feel like it wouldn’t affect my dreams. I feel like I might need to start small so I would be able to support my future family for some years. Then when the child is in their teen years, I would probably advance to the point for me to go after my dreams with my family.
Work Cited
Hansberry,Lorraine.A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage,1994. Print.
Hey Erin! I found your post to be a very well written and in-depth look on Mama’s willingness to but her families happiness ahead of her own. What I found really interesting in Act two was when Mama got back from putting a down payment on the house.
“WALTER (Crossing slowly to his bedroom door and finally turning there and speaking measuredly) What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? (Bitterly, to hurt her as deeply as he knows is possible) So you butchered up a dream of mine—you—who always talking ’bout your children’s dreams…”
(Hansberry).
Walter can not believe that Mama put her own dream before the families for the first time ever. What Walter needs to be reminded about is the fact that Mama using some of the money to buy the house benefits them all, not just Mama. Both Walter and Beneatha’s dreams for the money are very selfish and self serving , unlike Mama’s dream which benefits the whole family. All Mama ever wanted was to live in a house to call her own, even with achieving her dream she is still able to give everything else to her kids for their dreams. I congratulate Mama for being a little selfish because even when she is selfish she is thinking of her family.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I liked that you focused on Mama in your post as she is a key character in this play and hold the family together. I thought it was really important to point out how Mama has a plant that she waters everyday and this is symbolic of her hopes of her own garden one day. This dream comes to life when she buys the house for her family. She says later on “there’s a yard with a little patch of dirt where I could maybe get to grow me a few flowers…”(Hansberry-92) We are able to see Mama’s character through her actions of splitting the insurance money with her children. As you said, Mama dedicates her life to her family. It is important to make sacrifices you see fit. She gave Walter the rest of the money to use for his business and Beneatha’s schooling. She gives him what he’s been asking for, power. Throughout the play Walter just wants someone to believe in him. When Mama gave him her trust this showed just how hopeful she is for all of her children’s dreams to come true. She is selfless. The family means everything to her and it is obvious she would do anything for them. African Americans weren’t given the same opportunities as white people, like you said. Mama is using this insurance money as a way to make her children live their dreams that she couldn’t experience.
Work Cited
Hansberry,Lorraine.A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage,1994. Print.
Hi Erin, I thought that your blog post did a very nice job of showing how giving Mama really was to her children. I think that when you have children, they become the most important thing to you and you’ll want for them to see as much success as they can, even if it means compromising your own dreams and way of life, so in a way you want to hold yourself back if your children would be better off. Mama has always wanted what was best for her children, even if it meant she sacrificed her own dreams. I thought that when Mama decided to give Walter the rest of the check money after the house payment and step down out of power, it showed that she put her child before herself and her wants. ” The rest you put in a checking account with your name on it. I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be”(Hansberry 107). This shows that Mama is not only sacrificing all of the money she has left to her children, but she is also sacrificing her views being the most powerful. She tells Walter that it is now his time to be in charge and make the family decisions. I think making sacrifices is part of being a parent, especially in the case of Mama, she was willing to do anything for her children.
Work Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print
Hi Erin, I really enjoyed your post giving more light to Mama. She is an extremely interesting, strong, and selfless character. I think something that is important to think about regarding the first discussion question is how dreams can change. When having a family and children of your own, values and what you want may change. So while being able to own something of her own or have a garden seem like dreams she had to give up because of her children, it is clear that the way Mama cares about her children show that these things were not the only things she wanted in life. Her dreams developed and changed. When discussing the money she always tried to keep her children in mind. She wants Beneatha to go to school and later wants Walter to pursue his investment, while both of these things could cause doubt, and she is doubtful, she pushes those thoughts aside in order to allow her children to do what it is they want to. In the very first moments of meeting Mama, when trying to learn what she wants to do with the money we see what her first thoughts are. “Some of it got to be put away for Beneatha and her schoolin’.” (Hansberry, 44) She then later gives the money to Walter because she wants to give him the trust and support to do what he wants with the liquor store. While this results in her “losing” the opportunity to own a house and a garden like she had always wanted, I do not think this was her giving up her dreams. It is clear by the way she values family that her dream is for her children to succeed and accomplish anything they want, to achieve their dreams.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print
Hi Erin! I really enjoyed reading your perspective of this part because I felt the same way when reading it. Mama is represented as a person who puts herself before others, especially when it comes to her own family. I feel as if once someone becomes a mother they put their own needs after everyone else’s. They try to make the best things from a scenario that might not be so great. They try to make life seem as if life is not greener on the other side because they provide everything they can for their family. Although this is not true in everyone’s family situations, however, there is usually always someone that a person looks up to because they do the most to be there and support as much as they can. Mama is definitely this person when she says, “well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one” (Hansberry, 53). This quote inherently reveals that although mama does not have everything she wants in life, she improvises with stuff similar to make it seem as if she has what she wanted originally. Mama does not act a certain way because she does not have exactly what she wants but she enjoys the fact that she can have some time like it in hope that she will replace it with what she wants in the future. To answer your discussion questions I believe children do hold people back from achieving your own dreams. This is because you have to take sacrifices for your children and hope they can do everything you wanted to do in the future. Of course, you can still achieve anything you want to do, it might get pushed back in time or have to be something similar; just like mama and the plant. Although there are risks of sacrificing things for your family it is important that those risks are being made because it will give the impression to your kids that believing in something is important.
Work Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print
Hey Erin!! I really enjoyed reading your blog post due to numerous reasons. For instance, I found it very fascinating how you broke down Mamas character by explaining the deeper meaning behind her taking such care of her plant. I felt that Mama represents the strength and courage it takes to be a mother as it consists of putting your dreams behind in order to raise your family and teach them your values. At times children may interfere with a mother’s dreams, but sometimes in life individuals realize the feeling of love is a lot more powerful than success. With a family full of love, it helps fill the void of loneliness. I felt this quote stood out to me that you also used part of when Mama states “Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one. **(She looks out of the window as she replaces the plant) Lord, ain’t nothing as dreary as the view from this window on a dreary day, is there?**”. I highlighted this section of the quote as it displays Mamas true feelings of sadness. Being a good mother is not a simple task, it’s a priority to make your children happy, but it is important to focus on yourself every here and there and take the time to relax and find your true passion. I personally feel,if I had a child at this very moment in my life, it would impact my dreams drastically. I would not be financially stable enough to raise a child or have the time due to being a full-time college student and working a part-time job. I give all parents just like the character Mama a lot of recognition due to all their hard work they put in order to make their children successful.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin! I enjoyed reading your blog post and your views on Mama. I agree that Mama is a strong character that puts her family’s needs before her own. Motherhood seemed to overshadow her own dreams and goals. When Mama says, “well I have wanted me a garden like I used to see at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one.” This stood out to me because it seems that Mama often compromises her dreams to focus on her family instead. Often times we see parents put their own dreams on hold to raise their kids. However, I don’t think that having children has to hold a parent back from achieving their dreams. I feel it is important for parents to make their dreams a priority and to have passions aside from their family. Being a parent can make people put their dreams on hold, but it also can be a strong reason to go after them. A parent’s dreams don’t just matter to them but they also matter to their kids. A child seeing their parent achieving goals is inspiring to children and makes them feel that their dreams matter as well. Mama wants to take care of her family but I think it is equally as important for a parent to take care of themself.
Works Cited
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Hi Erin, I agree with the way you broke down mama’s character. Mama is the person that would put all her needs and dreams to the side if it meant that her kids would get the opportunity to live out their dreams. When talking to Walter, Mama came to a realization that “There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else – if it means – if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. . . . I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.” (page 106) Mama blames herself for the way Walter has been acting and ultimately feels she is the one holding back Walter from accomplishing his dreams so she gives him the rest of the money not only for him but for her daughter as well to accomplish her goals of becoming a doctor. As for your second question, I believe that you should be able to sacrifice some things for your children, however, I don’t believe that you should give up everything to anyone’s dreams. although I support what mama did, I believe that she should be able to live out her dreams as well.