Brynn Gorney

Mrs. Storer
English 3 Honors
March 13th, 2020

My Biggest Takeaway from A Raisin in the Sun

My biggest takeaway from reading Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is how
deferred dreams can destroy a person and/or the people surrounding them in different ways, such
as a man investing in a risky deal in hopes of earning money and losing thousands of dollars, a
young girl who dreams of pursuing an expensive career and ends up feeling incapable and
hollow, and a family moving into a hostile neighborhood knowing that they certainly will not
feel welcome and could even be harmed by making that choice.
I have never had a large-scale dream like the characters of A Raisin in the Sun, but I do
have small dreams about making (somewhat) professional music to put out for others to hear or
making art to sell. I wouldn’t say I’m exceptionally great at either thing, but I know I am
decently skilled enough to be able to produce mediocre quality products that a few people might
enjoy. Mostly, putting myself out there through music and art would be satisfying to me because
I would feel like I used my gifts to their fullest potential and left my mark in case something
happens to me. However, with the workload of Junior Year, I have been almost entirely unable
to make music and barely get time to finish a sketch between classes. Putting off my dream of
exposing my art and music to a group of people has been really harsh on my overall happiness
with myself throughout the year. Sometimes, when my social life and schoolwork would add to
the mix, everything would seem to gang up on me and bring me down to a very dark place that
does destroy you piece by piece. Thankfully, I am still functioning and making it through the
year, but I can’t help but wonder how different those occasions would have been if I had been
able to do the things I love and get closer to living out my dreams.
Looking at the Younger family, I can see the exact thing I felt happening to characters
such as Walter Lee and Beneatha. When Walter finds out that Willy has left with his family’s
invested 6.5 thousand dollars, he breaks down on his knees and starts sobbing into his mother’s
skirt as she draws near to him. This hopelessness and disappointment with his fate (and really,
himself) was such a relatable feeling for me. This not only killed Walter’s dream, but it branched
out to Beneatha, who could no longer pay for medical school, thus ending her life’s dream. It
also affected the family, who now had to scramble for money to be able to pay for their new
house and possibly recover a funding for her schooling. As Walter Lee screams, “Oh, God . . .
Don’t let it be true . . . I put my life in your hands . . .” (Hansberry 128), his mother Lena cries,
“Oh, God . . . Look down here-and show me the strength” (Hansberry 130). Moments later,
Beneatha rants to her love interest, Joseph Asagai, “Don’t you see there didn’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…” (Hansberry 134). Walter expresses to
God that he feels his whole life had just been thrown away. His mother, influenced by the effects
of this deferred dream, can only desperately cry for strength. His sister, also affected by the
mistake, feels like she’s marching in a hopeless circle. All of these things are feelings I’ve felt
this year while I deferred my own dreams. Through this realization, I now know that dreams are
incredibly important and cannot be put on the back burner.