Raisin In The Sun: A Literary Analysis

The actions that a person can get away with are determined by their social status. When the Younger family is going to move to the home, they are visited by Carl Lindner who is trying to dissuade them moving to the home. He says to them “ I am sure you people must be aware of some of the incidents which have happened in various parts of the city when colored people have moved into certain areas” (Hansberry 552). They, being colored people in the 1950s of a lower class, are having their right to choose where they live overlooked because of where they stand on the social pyramid. The actions of individual characters are also hindered by social standing. One such character is Walter Younger who wishes to own a liquor store, but during this time

In Raisin, Ruth tells Mama that she should take the check and just go on vacation: “Shoot—these here rich white women do it all the time. They don't think nothing of packing up they suitcases and piling on one of them big steamships and—swoosh!—they gone, child” (Hansberry 502). She believes that as long as Mama has the money to do that she should. To her it does not matter whether they are colored or not, white women can do it. An opportunity that due to their social standing Mama could not normally take. Another situation being where Walter repeats how a man should be able to buy some pearls to go around his wife’s neck. Consumed by the lack of wealth, the Younger family and others of the lower social class see those who do have more wealth and flaunt it. When Nick first sees the home of Tom and Daisy, he recalls it as such: “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run” (Fitzgerald 9). The people who are rich often show off their money and they could not imagine life without it once they have it. Other members of the upper