The Raisin in the Sun

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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The Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry's novel, A Raisin in the Sun, revolves around a middle-class African-American family, struggling during World War II. By reading about the Younger's true to life experiences, one learns many important life lessons. One of the aforementioned would be that a person should always put family's needs before their own. There are many examples of this throughout the novel. Just a few of these would be the example of Ruth and her unborn baby, Walter regaining the respect of his family, and Mama and her unselfish ways.

The first event that shows one should always put family before oneself is the case of Ruth and her unborn baby. At first, Ruth is thinking about having an abortion, and has already paid a five-dollar down payment to the doctor. She explains to Walter her reasoning for such drastic measures by saying, "…I-I'm sorry about this new baby, Walter.

I guess maybe I better go on and do what I started… I guess I just didn't realize how bad things was with us… I guess I just didn't realize."(87) Ruth is going to destroy this baby because she feels that she and Walter just do not have enough money to support another family member, and feels that she and Walter will only bring the baby into a world of fighting. Beneatha also has influence on Ruth's decision by asking, "… where is he going to live? On the roof?"(58). Beneatha feels that if Ruth has another baby it would just complicate the living situation, which is strenuous enough as it is. Later, even with all of this negative energy, Ruth comes to realize that she should not take the life of her baby and decides to keep it. One of her reasons for...