Women In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

While reading acts one and two in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry the reader was able to determine the difference in the mindsets of the three generations of women in the Younger’s household. The three women in this story were Mama, (Beneatha and Walter’s mother) Ruth, (Walter’s wife and mother to Travis) and Beneatha (who was single and had no children). These women were all at different stages in their lives as well as being from different generations. Therefore these women completed tasks in different ways based on the generation they were born into. It is clear to many that each generation differs in mindsets, but these three women all had the same sense in what it took to carry out a task or goal and differ in the sense
Since it does not specifically state when the play took place, we can compare the generations of the Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Generations X’s as though the are the generations of Mama, Ruth, and Beneatha. According to the article in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology by Jean, Elise, and Keith, “Compared to Baby Boomers (born 1946-1961) at the same age, GenX’ers (born 1962-1981) and Millennials (born after 1982) considered goals related to extrinsic values (money, image, fame) more important and those related to intrinsic values (self-acceptance, affiliation, community) less important.” This allows us to conclude that the generational difference may have made Ruth and Beneatha value money, image, and fame more than Mama who would value self-acceptance, affiliation, and community. Ruth and Beneatha are more concerned with what others will think and about how popular they are and Mama cares more about the person she is and wants to develop a friendship with the people around her surrounding herself with people she can trust. It could even be said that Mama was more concerned with those around her and Ruth and Beneatha cared more about what they could do to help themselves. As the article states, “The results generally support the “Generation Me” view of generational differences rather than the “Generation we” or no change views.” This is interesting because this could be carried on to the idea of children. In the play, we find out that Ruth is pregnant with a second child but chooses to abort her child. This could be seen as though it was for a selfish reason since she is from the “generation me”. Beneatha is also not wanting to have children and instead wants to travel and live an extravagant life. On the other side of this Mama is all about family and what it means, further supporting the “Generation we”