Dayondra Duffy
English 11
Mr.
August 8, 2013
The Dream-Catcher A wise and intelligent author, Lorraine Hansberry once said, “There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing” (Brainy Quotes). The famous play “A Raisin in the Sun” shares curtain concepts with a very self-spoken poem by Langston Hughes titled “A Dream Deferred.” A dream can be as addicting as a drug as Walter and Beneatha share common desire within the famous poem, and that is, a dream. As Walter dreams of working as a business man in the field of selling liquor, Beneatha desires something that isn’t really common as a minority in the early times of 1960s, and that is to become a doctor. In the play Mama waits to receive a check that will change hers and her family’s life forever. Though, both of her intelligent and determined children both have their own ideas with what to do with the money. Mama must make a decision to give majority of her money to her strong welled son Walter to peruse his dreams or to use it to try to keep together this family that she sees is beginning to fall apart. It’s amazing how one person can crave a dream so much it can take upon a life of its own and either make or break one’s hopes and desires. Beneatha and Walter, both unique characters in the play, A Raisin in the Sun, share a certain passion presented in the poem, A Dream Deferred, by showing lose in hope, letting their dreams get the best of them, and having a desire to do something more in their life than their earlier generations, taking advantage of the new opportunities that minorities have after the end of slavery. A Dream Deferred is all about losing hope that one’s dream will become a reality. As shown in A Raisin in the Sun, Walter looses hope and sees “reality” after his dream is basically crushed, he says, “Talking about life, Mama. You all always telling me to see life like it is. Well—I laid in there on my back today. . . and I figured it out. Life just like it is. Who gets and who don’t get. Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the ‘token.’ I’ve figured it out finally. Yeah. Some of us always getting ‘tooken.’ People like Willy Harris, they don’t never get ‘tooken.’ And you know why the rest of us do? ‘Cause we all mixed up. Mixed up bad. We get to looking’ round for the right and the wrong; and we worry about it and cry about it and stay up nights trying to figure out the rights of things all the time...” (Hansberry 142). Walter has sacrificed everything to accomplish this one dream that he is sure is going to become a reality, but as everything is taking away from him in what it seems a blink of an eye he looses hope and see that to somebody like him, it just isn’t “reality.” This message goes to most individuals and specifically minorities around the world now, as they feel that they are not worthy or good enough to accomplish dreams that seem to be unfit for themselves because of the common racism that still exists in the world today. Similar messages are shared in the famous poem A Dream Deferred as it states, “What happens to a dream deferred?... Maybe it just sags like a heavy load, or does it explode? (Langston Hughes). Walters dream explodes and hurts him so horrendously he now sees the bigger picture of how life works. He realizes bigger and better things in life as he says. “Willy Harris taught me something, he taught me to keep my eyes on what counts in this world” (Hansberry 142). What really matters to Walter is his family that has been with him every step of the way. The author also leaves this message because many times people are so focused on one dream that they forget that family is one of the top priorities in their life. True sacrifice and loosing hopes sometime means one is meant to have a bigger and brighter plans for ones future, as a lesson Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes leave in their strong unique pieces of