“A Raisin in the Sun” - Family Turmoil
“A Raisin in the Sun” - Family Turmoil
In “A Raisin in the Sun”, Mother tries to keep control over her family because she believes in their dreams and in their future. However, she insists that they still must learn for themselves. Throughout the entire story, Mother’s main attention is focused on bringing the family closer and keeping each other in mind before making decisions. She is the boss of the family and everything revolves around her. At one point Mother says to Walter, "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."
Because of Mother’s concern for her family and future well-being, she buys a house and puts in in the name of Walter’s son, Travis. With the leftover money, she hands it to Walter and says to keep his share and the rest is for his sister’s education. However, Walter uses all the money to give to a friend to start a liquor store. However, Walter’s friend runs off with the money. After this, Walter believes that he can sell the new house for more than they bought it for and therefore pay Mother back.
As we can see Walter never seems to realize what Mother is trying to do for the family. Walter sees everything as a quick fix. He wants what he wants and fails to see that Mother has given everything she had to give her family what they needed and to bring them closer together.
Two other conflicts arise at this point which makes Mother feel like she has done a poor job in raising her family. One is the fact the Walter’s wife is expecting a baby, but she is considering an abortion as to avoid anymore conflict between her and her husband. When Mother tries to talk to Walter about this, but he seems to not care at all.
The other conflict which arises in her daughter Beneatha. Beneatha talks about how she doesn’t believe in God and doesn’t believe that he deserves credit for anything. Mother slaps Beneatha and makes her repeat,...