This post is going to be an analysis of what I see as the important dreams in A Raisin in the Sun. It will gauge the plausibility and content of said dreams.
Obviously, the most in your face of these dreams has to be Walter's. He simply won't keep quiet about his dream to own a liquor store and get rich. Even when he loses that dream, the first thing he does is cry about it (Can I go ahead and say that we all knew his plan was an impending train wreck when we saw it?). But was it even a possibility to start with?
Well, not really. See, the thing that made Walter so enthusiastic about it was the fact that he was promised that it was more or less within reach. Given he could come up with X amount of cash (I say X because it was all $10,000 to start with, but as we find out he managed to push ahead with only $6,500) he could get his store and... lead his family to the promised land? Walter never thought out the details of his whole get rich quick scheme (such as the real benefits of success and the time and emotional costs involved) and he kept his eyes only on the fact that it would get him rich (he even promises to give Travis the world). I guess the fact that he didn't think out his plan made sense. Walter is the kind of person who appears to have only two things that he wants in life. Those would be alcohol and money, and unfortunately as his life stands the acquisition of one means either the denial or loss of the other. The store represents his dream of getting the best of both worlds and essentially getting money to be drunk (I mean, let's be honest. Given half a chance, Walter would happily drink all of the alcohol in a store that he owns). His dream is unreasonable from the outset, and though he is perfectly fine with lashing out at Mama and accusing her of crushing his dreams, he is also fine with simultaneously crushing Beneatha's dream of being a doctor.
Beneatha's dream of being a doctor happens to be one the other important dreams in the book. She is the only person in the family who is in college (or at least in a position to get a medical degree). She's also facing a bit of an identity crisis (she doesn't know what she likes so she tries everything and doesn't know really know anything about her heritage and so compensates by being the most annoyingly un-assimilated person in the novel).
It's fairly safe to say, though, that her dream of becoming a doctor is realistic. Mama tells Walter to set aside $3,000 for her education, which is affordable given the whole $10,000 budget. Also, her job as a doctor would be fairly stable and she'd be able to support the family (and her identity eccentricities). In fact, had Walter been able to think objectively about the situation, he'd be able to tell that if he could only get past his whole obsession with alcohol and masculinity and being the breadwinner and let Beneatha take over, he would be much happier. But, of course, that isn't the case.
The last dream that matters is Mama's. Unfortunately, we don't really know much about this one, despite it being a very important dream. It's certainly sustainable, with a down payment of $3,500 and it would heavily benefit the family. It would also be highly practical, because as it stands the family can't expand. However, we really don't know a lot about how it will impact that family, other than the fact that the new neighbors will be jerks (maybe we'll work out what happens about this dream in act III?)
Nick, while I am going to overlook the inappropriate meme above, your use of parentheticals are extremely humorous. You trace a few of the characters' dreams; I think it is important that you noted Walter's influence on others' dreams.
ReplyDelete