Walter Lee In A Raisin In The Sun

In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, she focuses her dramatic plot on the domestic affairs of an African-American family: the Youngers. However, in order to capture the complexity of the family’s financial and social reality, Hansberry offers a multitude of perspectives with her characters that strive to accomplish their own dreams, yet refuses to condemn or commemorate the actions of the characters to better their situation. It is this refusal, on the playwright’s part, that allows characters — like Walter Lee Younger — to be performed differently by actors. By contrasting Sidney Poitier’s and Danny Glover’s performance, this paper will argue that the actors focus on inferable character qualities of Walter Lee that present Walter’s
However, the actor’s attention to specific character traits of Walter Lee — like selfishness or a misguided judgement — alters the portrayal of the character in the scene with Bobo. When Poitier’s version of Walter greets Bobo, Poitier performs a swagger that is reminiscent of a business man on the cusp of making a business “transaction” (Hansberry 108), which, for all intents and purposes, the character is at this moment in the play. As Walter Lee has, for a brief moment, attained that selfish desire to be a business “executive” (108), Poitier’s performance reflects that sense of fulfilment in Walter’s character. Consequently, Poitier performs Walter with an air of confidence that is not only discernible in his boisterous delivery of “you right on time today…right on time” (126) and slight revision of Hansberry’s line “man— didn’t nothing go wrong” (126) into a more boastful “nah, nothing went wrong” (Petrie 01.34.46), but also in his onscreen presence because he sits across from Bobo and leans forward in a casual manner (01.38.37-01.38.57) that emits this bravado. In direct contrast, Glover’s performance of Walter Lee emphasizes the sense of nervous energy, the hesitation “to let the future begin” (Hansberry 125), that permeates this scene with Bobo because Glover says,
As mentioned previously, Walter’s perspective of the world being a class struggle is significant to the way each actor performs Walter’s reaction. Poitier’s emphasis on Walter’s selfishness manifests in an aggressive insensibility towards the hysterical Bobo that resembles, in an unsettling way, a boss belittling and blaming an employee for failing to meet an expectation because Poitier’s aggressive posture, waving fist (Petrie 01.40.29-01.40.37) and forceful delivery of “then tell me goddamnit” (Hansberry 127) exacerbates the selfish desire of wealth that governs Walter’s management of the money. However, the sudden outburst of physical violence, to slap Bobo in the face (Petrie 01.40.30-01.40.34), is significant in itself because it not only diverges from Hansberry’s script, but also visually demonstrates Walter Lee’s perspective of the world being a class struggle. This perspective suggests that Walter’s unreasonable attack on Bobo is an impulse reaction to a society that discriminates against and impoverishes Africa-Americans; therefore, Walter refuses to lose the class struggle without a fight and wrongly lashes out at Bobo, who, in his anger-addled mind, is perpetuating this poverty. Conversely, in Glover’s performance, there are no overt displays of aggression