A Raisin in the Sun (pages 476-492)

Mama makes a huge decision in this next section of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. The first of the questions for this play asks how two characters are searching for a better way of life, and how they attempt to bring about this change. Walter and Mama are two characters whose search for a new way of life causes them to clash. Mama is searching for a new home with which to raise Travis and start new, and toward the end of this section, "'She went out and she bought [Travis] a house'" (Hansberry, 489). Mama has taken the first step to changing her lifestyle in hopes that it will improve the family life of the Youngers. Walter on the other hand was hoping to use the money that Mama used to purchase a house to start up a business of liquor stores. By attempting to gain his own business, he hopes to make a larger profit than he is in order to support his family. Unlike Mama, Walter thinks he is looking at the big picture, and by being able to make money he can not only purchase a new house, but have more money to spend in the future. Both of these characters plan to obtain similar ways of life, but in very extreme ways. Mama wants to spend it on multiple things in order to improve their life, whereas Walter wants to spend it all at once in hopes of acquiring a larger profit in the future. At the end of this section, Walter's dreams for obtaining a new life are destroyed by Mama's possibly irrational decision of buying a home.