A Study of the Personality of Walter Lee as Described in Lorraine Hansberry’s Play, A Raisin in The Sun

Good results/Values: Walter Lee defines good results as material and monetary achieve. Beneatha defines achievement as self-actualization, or understanding about and nurturing oneself. But to their mother, Lena,accomplishment is less self-centered and lies more in creating a happy, healthful family members. Lena often compares her children’s values to her personal and her late husband’s, and finds her children to be much less moral or spiritual in their hopes and dreams. She does not believe that material accomplishment will elevate the loved ones, as Walter Lee does, rather observing that his grasping right after achievement is damaging his household. Take into account the generational differences in defining accomplishment, but also contemplate how Walter Lee’s and Beneatha’s notions of success resemble those of their parents.

Dreams: An essential aspect of Walter Lee’s character is revealed in his interaction with Travis. He sees and admires his son’s ability to hope: Travis is young adequate nevertheless to think that the planet is open to him and can be his if he wants it, with no limits. Walter Lee desires to believe in limitless possibilities, too, and he hangs onto his personal potential to hope and dream. Travis’s innocence and hopefulness remind Walter Lee of his personal possible for dreaming.

Walter Lee’s feelings about his dreams and Ruth’s attitude toward them crystallize in this passage. He is desperate to escape the circumstances of his life, and his dreams represent his belief that he can still modify his life, in spite of his weak economic position. But the reality that Ruth does not assistance him drags him down element of Walter Lee’s vision of his life is that he should have a wife who believes in him.

Walter is feeling the pressure of getting so several men and women to take care of. He works at a complete-time job, but Ruth must also operate in order for the loved ones to stay afloat. Walter Lee lashes out at his sister due to the fact he can not say to his mother or his son what he feels he can say to his sister: that it is challenging for him and Ruth to support every person.

Dreams: Ironically, Walter Lee criticizes Beneatha for the identical point Ruth criticizes him for: obtaining aspirations. Beneatha dreams of getting a medical professional one day, and her dream is truly relatively realistic, specifically compared to Walter Lee’s dream of striking it wealthy in business. Walter Lee can't see that assisting Beneatha now will aid the family in the long run since when she can practice medicine their monetary burdens could be lightened substantially. Of course, Walter Lee’s pride may contribute to his blind spot possibly the idea of his sister becoming far more productive than him is as well difficult for him to swallow.

Achievement/Values: Lena’s question reflects the division in between herself and her son in terms of their values: Lena is 1st and foremost a Christian, and Walter Lee’s head is complete of moneymaking schemes.
Good results/Values: Walter Lee tries to shift blame for their poverty onto Lena in order to make her feel guilty for not supporting his proposal. He believes that the liquor shop could make him rich, and that’s all that matters to him. His mother, in contrast, locations morals above income, refusing to fund what she sees as an immoral enterprise just due to the fact it could make them some cash. She would favor to be poor but virtuous, whereas her son chooses money over virtue.

All Walter Lee can believe about is the cash and what he wants to do with it. He tells how Willy has filled out all the required paperwork for buying the liquor store, but Lena interrupts him, telling him he needs to talk to Ruth. Walter Lee is so self-absorbed he does not choose up on his mother’s which means: he only desires to speak about his large plans. When Lena tries to get him to stop and listen to, he explodes, yelling that he desires an individual to listen to him. Lena quietly tells him to stop yelling and that she has no intention of funding his strategy for the liquor retailer anyway. He asks her just to appear at the plans, and she says she won’t discuss it further. Walter Lee tells his mother that if she is going to be in charge of this funds then she can be accountable for Travis and Ruth and the hardships they have to endure.

Walter begins to leave, and Ruth asks him exactly where he’s going. He won’t be certain – he just desires to get out of the apartment – and Ruth says she will go with him, wanting to talk to him. He tells her he does not want her to come, even when she tells him she has got to talk to him. Lena insists Walter Lee sit down and speak to her. He and Ruth insult every other, and she runs into the bedroom, slamming the door. Lena asks Walter what is the matter with him she says, “Something eating you up like a crazy man” (56). She says she sees him tying himself in knots about something lately, and just exploding anytime any individual tries to help. She warns her son that he could drive Ruth away.

Walter Lee is uncomfortable with what his mother is saying to him, and he tries to leave. Lena expresses her concern that he is hunting for peace outside his own residence, calling that type of circumstance “dangerous”. He declares that he is not getting an affair but that he desires to do so many factors “they are driving me kind of crazy”.

Lena says she thinks Walter Lee has got a fine life, with “a job, a nice wife, a fine boy,” but Walter Lee laments the fact that his job is driving a man around all day and opening doors for him. Walter Lee calms down and tries to make Lena see what is going on inside him. He says he sees the future as “a massive, looming blank space – full of absolutely nothing. Just waiting for me”.

Good results/Values: Walter Lee is dissatisfied with his life. His mother thinks he has all any individual demands tobe satisfied, but he wants far more for himself and has not been in a position to figure out how to get it. The notion of his life going on this way torments and oppresses him. Walter Lee goes on to talk about how he often looks by way of restaurant windows downtown and sees “them white boys . . . sitting back and talking ’bout factors . . . sitting there turning offers worth millions of dollars . . . occasionally I see guys don’t look a lot older than me” (58).

Walter asks George if he is not bitter also. “And you – ain’t you bitter, man? . . . Don’t you see no stars gleaming that you can’t reach out and grab? You happy? . . . Bitter? Man, I’m a volcano… Here I am a giant – surrounded by ants! Ants who can’t even realize what it is the giant is talking about”.

Walter presumes a kind of harsh camaraderie with George based on the reality that they are each African
men, and in George’s firm he is unable to contain his anguish over his lot in life.

Dreams: Ruth has dreams, too, and she utilised to share them with Walter Lee. These dreams are maybe more realistic than the ones he has cooked up with Willy and Bobo, and Ruth sees sensible ways of attaining them. Even so, she cannot seek them – or obtain them – without having Walter, due to the fact he is portion of them.

Dreams: Lena has created her personal dream come true by getting this home, and she is attempting to aid Ruth and Walter comprehend their dreams, also, in her way. She knows Walter wants to adjust his life, and she provides the house as a tool for adjust. Lena enters, startling Ruth and Walter Lee. Walter asks where she has been, but she does not answer. Walter insists on understanding where she has been, worried that she has spent the insurance coverage funds. Travis enters, and Lena calls him to her. Suspense builds as Lena starts to explain where she has been and what she has done. Lastly, she announces that she has purchased a residence, telling Travis that it was his grandfather who gave him the residence.

Ruth is thrilled at Lena’s news, and she asks Walter to be glad, too. He remains silent. Lena describes the house, to Ruth’s wonderful joy, and Lena turns to Walter Lee and tells him, “It makes a difference in a man when he can stroll on floors that belong to him” (76). her words about pushing out and performing some thing bigger sound just like his words. Even though she recognizes the potential danger of moving into a white neighborhood, her need to keep her loved ones together overrides any apprehension she could have.