Preview

The Help

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1532 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Help
Carly Marie Odegard
Honors English 10
Steiner
Final Essay Final Essay

Identity, Dreams, and floating into Reality

“I don’t flit! I-I experiment with different forms of expression-...-people have to express themselves one way or another.” Beneatha is a college student who provides a young, independent, feminist perspective, and her desire to become a doctor demonstrates her great ambition. Throughout the A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry, she searches for her identity. She is also faced with many struggles that allow her to find what she is truly looking for by the end of the book, which is her identity. Beneatha is constantly trying to find her identity even though her family does not tend to believe in her due to the fact that Beneatha “flits from one thing to another all the time.”
Beneatha is not taken very seriously in the beginning of the play when she wants to try new things and experiment because of the fact she tries so many different things and doesn’t tend to stick with them. She struggles with finding her identity and pursuing her dreams. “Well-I do-alright?-thanks everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all!...FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!” (37). Her family can’t seem to understand why she keeps trying new things when they feel as though she’ll just give up and start another new things again shortly. They can’t understand her because they don’t know what she is going through. She is being sarcastic in this quote while talking to her brother Walter and cannot believe her family won’t stand beside her as she wants to become a doctor. Mama even makes fun of Beneatha, “Lord, child, don’t you know what to do with yourself? How long it going to be before you get tired of this now-like you got tired of that little play-acting group you joined last year? (47). Beneatha’s family members don’t support her and don’t really believe in her when it comes to taking up something new in hopes of finding her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Many people have dreams that they want to accomplish. In A Raisin in the Sun, characters have a goal. Walter’s passion is to own a liquor store because he wants to be an entrepreneur. Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor to help cure people. Mama pursues her dream of having a garden and a house. Each person’s aspiration is important to them. Thesis…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the narrator, Melinda Sordino, awaits her first day as a freshman at Merryweather High she describes, “the school bus wheezes to my corner” (pg 3). The authors’ use of personification describes the heaviness and panic that is set into the setting. When Melinda arrives at school, she describes, as others’ talk behind her back, the feeling that “words climb up my throat” (pg 5). This personification describes the want to speak up but is silenced by her feelings of anger and disparity. Melinda’s experience so far at high school hasn’t been perfect, but has rather worn her out “my bed is sending out serious nap rays… The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am” (pg 16). This passage shows that she would…

    • 191 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: Hansberry, Lorraine. "A Raisin in the Sun." The Norton Introduction to Literature. By Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. 950-1021. Print.…

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Rasin in the Sun

    • 395 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, one of the main characters is Beneatha Younger. She is a young African American woman who is studying to be a doctor. She has been seeing two men and they both have a pretty big influence on her and her family. One of them is a better influence than the other.…

    • 395 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Unlike the rest of her family, Beneatha looks beyond her immediate situation in an effort to understand herself as a member of a greater whole. As she becomes more educated, it becomes increasingly hard for Beneatha to relate to the rest of her family. Sometimes she can be a bit condescending and seems to forget that her family members (especially her mother) all work very hard to help put her through school. However, this character flaw only serves to make her seem all the more understandable and human. Ultimately, Beneatha is a kind and generous person, who seeks to become a doctor out of a desire to help people.…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As we live our lives, the things we see, hear, say and do, all have an impact on what we become. We are constantly changing; our experiences and the people we meet shape our identities. In the novel April Raintree by Beatrice Culleton, April’s mother figures all had a significant part in shaping her personal identity. The mother figures in April’s life were her real mother (Mrs. Raintree), Mrs. DeRosier and Mrs. Dion. Mrs. Raintree and Mrs. DeRosier had negative influences upon April’s personal identity causing her to be ashamed of being Metis. On the other hand, Mrs. Dion had a positive impact upon April helping her to realize that her life had a purpose.…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Heritage is important. In the historical play “A Raisin in the sun” by Lorraine Hansberry heritage is a big part of the characters lives. The story revolves around the Younger's family who are African Americans living in South side chicago. Despite the fact that they live in a caucasian society, the character Beneatha is proud of her heritage. Beneatha shows how the ashanti people are worthy of admiration because they made a big contribution to society, It is the roots of who they are, they're admirable.…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mama Archetype Essay

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The demand for Beneatha to accept the God which Mama believes in regardless of her own personal views further highlights Mama’s traditional values and her lack of willingness to change them. This allows for Hansberry to show that Mama is not a progressive character which, particularly in the context of when the play was written, was done purposefully to portray Mama as the ‘Mammy’, archetype. Mama is therefore seen as an elderly woman, stuck in old traditions and bound by her past, showing that in ‘A Raisin in the Sun’; stereotypes are fleshed out rather than…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I finished A Raisin in the Sun, I sat back and reflected on the primary thematic messages the author had shown. One of the themes I came across was the strength of a dream. Throughout the play, you are reminded of every dream each character has. Beneatha yearns to have a medical degree and become a doctor while Mama’s dream is for her children to be humble and grateful in a new home. Walter’s dream is to open up a liquor store and make money for his family to have a “better” life. Early on in the story, readers find out that Mama has a large check coming from her late husband’s life insurance. This excitement starts to create a large uproar of arguments in the family. The arguments ranged from Walter and Ruth to Mama and Walter to…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This can be seen in a scene in which she dances while in African dress to tribal music given to her by Joseph. Though her family scorns her for it, it is only because they don't sense her passion and longing to express her true identity. Though both her and Joseph are no longer in Africa, they both seek to express their true identity – their African identity. The following quotes both illustrate this. In one scene, Beneatha says, “People have to express themselves in one way or another.” When questioned as to what she is trying to express, she proudly says “me!” Similarly, Joseph tells Beneatha, “I’d like to talk to you about Africa because it’s part of my identity!” Beneatha’s attitude towards individuals expressing their unique identity can be seen in another example. After her nephew Travis buys a present for his grandmother, his family is taken aback by the weird hat he gives her. However, Beneatha explains that it’s not weird, as “it’s different, it’s expressive, and he picked it out himself.” Travis doesn't feel bound to “fit in” as to what’s considered the norm, and his aunt picks up on this and encourages him to live his life like…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I just really don’t like being the center of attention that much. It’s kind of ironic.” Whether it means giving a speech in front of an audience or dancing on a stage, no one likes it. However, in the novel, The Flamingo Rising, Larry Baker introduces Louise, a different type of person that will do anything to be the center of attention. In Larry Baker’s novel, Louise and her brother, Abraham Isaac, start their first day at school at the age of twelve. Louise’s limp becomes obvious because she is nervous. As the class stares at her, she overcomes this nervousness and takes control of the situation. In the novel, The Flamingo Rising, Larry Baker clearly shows that Louise’s identity is created more by the environment than by the individual. One can see this through her desire to be the center of attention.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lorraine Hansberry portrays the revolution of black’s consciousness through the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by introducing the Younger family to readers. This play takes place in a poor black neighborhood in Chicago’s Southside in the 1950s where the Younger family struggles with racial discrimination and finding their true dreams and goals. Like most literature, this play has a clear protagonist, but Hansberry also uses an anti-hero, a flawed character who lacks heroic qualities, but with whom the reader still sympathizes and who eventually redeems himself through a heroic act or decision. With the weight of his deferred dreams upon his shoulders, Walter Lee Younger digs himself into a massive pit of troubles but slowly redeems himself by realizing the wrongs of his actions, making him the anti-hero of this play.…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dreams of the future can be changed, manipulated, or can even hold false hope. One can dream of being or doing something they truly aspire and it can make them accomplish it. Even though this is possible, people can experience not having the support from people that are in their everyday lives. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “A Raisin in the Sun” and the novel “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, both authors convey the idea that women must work hard for their dreams of having a better future even when men do not support their idea like Beneatha when she is told by his brother, Walter, and her boyfriend, George, that she is wasting her time on studying on becoming a doctor and Alicia knowing that she has to fulfill her duty of being…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raisin in the Sun Essay

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The role of the younger aged woman in the raisin in the sun addressed as Beneatha Younger is the first stage of development of feminism. Her character would be described as hard headed, bratty, self-centered , most of the time she acts like a teenager despite the fact she is twenty years old, she has respect for Mama but has an atrocious attitude toward everyone else. Beneatha's main goal is that she has to better than everyone to make herself look better, she is going to college to become a doctor because she wanted the ability to cure and in the beginning she wanted Mama's money to use for college. Also Beneatha doesn't believe in God because she dread the credit God gets for the achievements of the human race, her relationship with George Murchison was an familiar refrence of to the marriage of Ruth and Walter Lee Younger Junior, who relationship is majorly corrupted that they don't like talking to each other and fight frequently. It is difficult for Beneatha to make her dream come true because people like George and Walter Lee Younger Junior try to convince Beneatha that it is impossible for a black women like herself to become a doctor. "Guy aren't going to go for the atmosphere-they're going to go for what they see. Be glad for that."(Hansberry p.96) which is what George said to Beneatha…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raisin In The Sun

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry uses the play, A Raisin in the Sun, as a way to reveal the struggles…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays