Grapes in Water

A Raisin in the Sun demonstrates the struggle of black minority groups through its skillful depiction of family relationships in the first act.

First of all, I find it significant that Hansberry set the time period for her novel as anytime between “World War II and the present” because it demonstrates the everlasting nature of the struggle for equality.  I also connected this time frame to “The Aesthetics of Segregation, Black Liberation” literary criticism.  This article states that Hansberry did “not offer desegregation as the ultimate answer to segregation, but rather as a necessary step” toward achieving equality for all of mankind (222).  The time frame adds to the notion that the fight for equality is ongoing by allowing readers in the “present” to take ownership of the problems presented in the play and apply them to their own lives.

Secondly, I thought that the characterization of the items in the house as “tired” not only emphasized Ruth’s weariness but also served to represent the exhausted lives of the black community as a whole.  In the 1950s, it was very difficult for people of color to attain white-collar jobs.  The majority of black women worked as maids or nannies for wealthy white families, and most black men worked in factories or held other blue-collar jobs.  These jobs offered little emotional reward, and there was little opportunity for advancement.  As a result, blacks were kept in an inescapable state of poverty and inferiority to whites.  This position in society took an emotional and physical toll on minorities.  In fact, the “American negro had a life expectancy of five to ten years less than the average white” (To Be Young 177).  The adverse effects on the emotional and physical well-being of blacks in an oppressive society is represented in Hansberry’s personification of the Lee’s house as “tired”.   

And finally, I found Walter’s rant about Ruth not supporting his dream very ironic.  He accusingly asserts that Ruth doesn’t understand her spousal duty to “making’em feel like [he] somebody” because she reasonably refuses to blindly support his dream of opening a liquor store.  Walter says that she suppresses his hope by indifferently offering him eggs without listening to him.  However, despite Walter’s whiney complaints that he is the one being oppressed, as a black woman, Ruth is ultimately the inferior partner in the relationship and therefore could never oppress him.  In fact, Walter repeatedly emotionally mistreats Ruth by referring to her as a “colored woman”(27) in a derogatory fashion.  Through this dynamic, Hansberry demonstrates the marital issues that develop as a result of a twisted and harmful society.