A Raisin in the Sun and the Heroine's Journey

 To preface my blog, I would like to address a few things: the first, Beneatha Younger is not the protagonist of Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. That is, she does not possess the lead role for whom the primary character development narrative is structured around. That status would fall to Walter Younger, her brother and head of the Younger household who dreams of striking it rich and becoming more successful than any of the Youngers’ prior four generations of colored ancestors. This is not to say that Beneatha is a completely inertial character, it is through Hansberry’s portrayal of Beneatha and her interactions with her relatives and peers (namely her revolutionary-oriented Nigerian boyfriend, Joseph Asagai) that A Raisin in the Sun conveys its primary message, the importance of aspirations and ambitions in a world society that was not constructed with you in mind.

At the start of the film, Beneatha is portrayed as the Younger family’s “last hope.” While the “real” protagonist Walter is the primary breadwinner of the family, much of the family’s income goes to Beneatha’s schooling in the hopes that she can become a doctor. In this way, Beneatha fills the shoes of the male by enrolling herself in medical school in the hopes of joining a male-dominated field. Beneatha, as a character, personifies the intersectional experience of a person who not only experiences the struggle of putting oneself through medical school while living in poverty, but also being a black woman who is put down by misogyny and racism in turn. Beneatha is separated not only from her femininity, but the rest of her “uneducated” family who could only afford to send one relative to college. Interestingly, Beneatha also is dating two men (though not seriously) at the same time, one is a wealthy black businessman while the other is a Nigerian who gives her nicknames like Alaiyo (meaning “one for whom bread is not enough”) and pokes fun at her for her straightened hair. The portrayal of Beneatha as a “liberated woman” of sorts further serves to disconnect her from roles of classic femininity. In the first ten minutes of the film, Beneatha has already been stripped of traditional gender roles long before the rising action, setting her up perfectly for the journey her character will take.

The conflict in "A Raisin in the Sun" is interconnected with the “Boon” step of the Heroine’s Journey. Before the opening of the movie, the audience is informed of the death of Walter and Beneatha’s father, as well as his ten thousand dollar life insurance benefit in Lena (Beneatha’s mother) name that comes with his passing. While the family wishes to use the money to pay for Beneatha’s education and potentially a house in Clybourne Park, Walter wishes to use the money to invest in a liquor store; additional tensions are put on the family with the pregnancy of Walter’s wife, Ruth. As with many central characters in theatrical dramas or literature that can border on the genre of tragedy, the “road of trials” for Beneatha is hard to pinpoint. Roughly the first half of the film depicts a Younger family that is seemingly at the end of their trials with the hopes of realizing their ambitions via the insurance money on the horizon. On another level of analysis however, that is, on observing the journey of the individual Beneatha, her “trials” do not come to an end with the delivery of the money. I argue that, in the context of the Heroine’s Journey, Beneatha’s road of trials began when she as a child observed a boy split his head open while sledding and his subsequent recovery after a hospital visit. While not explicitly shown in the movie, this pivotal moment of recollection frames Beneatha’s inspiration to become a doctor, and it occurs around a decade before the chronological start of the movie. To achieve a full understanding of Beneatha’s journey, one must fully realize the motive that first separates her from her femininity, her need for success.

*Diana Sands, the actress who played Beneatha Younger in the 1959 Broadway premieral cast as well as the subsequent 1961 film adaptation

Beneatha’s identification with the masculine not only materializes in her ambition to become a doctor, but also in her reactionary atheism, which is presented in the film as the ultimate “spiritual aridity.” It is at a point in the movie where Beneatha and the family are waiting for the insurance check where Beneatha begins to express her opinions of God. As a med-student she explains that she is tired of God receiving all the credit for man. God does not save lives, rather doctors do; God does not pay her tuition. This leads to a confrontation with her mother that results in her being slapped and forced to repeat “In my mother’s house there is still God.”

The pivotal moment in A Raisin in the Sun occurs when Walter squanders the insurance money on his liquor store, which is revealed to be a scam. It is when Beneatha’s education is jeopardized that she begins to consider her boyfriend’s proposal to marry him and go with him to Nigeria to finish med-school there. This “forcing” into the traditional gender role of wife serves almost as a pessimistic reconnection to femininity. However, the reconnection is not with her femininity, but rather, a reconnection with her roots as an African by marrying a Nigerian and migrating to Africa. The reconnection is not just with femininity, but specifically, a more cultural femininity with a stronger resemblance to some concept of “ancestral homeland.” This femininity is one that rejects the notion that “[black] heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and grass huts,” but rather one where women do not “mutilate” their hair by straightening it and families aren’t visited by welcome committees under a thinly veiled motive of race prejudice. These events also work into an interpretation of the “Master of Two Worlds” step from the Hero’s Journey with the union of a black woman and an African man.

*It is worth noting that these ideas were controversial at the time of A Raisin in the Sun’s release, in fact, much of the dialogue regarding Nigeria and the idea of a “back-to-Africa” movement were removed from the film adaptation of the play.

She eventually reconnects with her mother as well who tells her to not shun her brother for wasting their wealth, citing that it is when our relatives are at their lowest that we must show them the most love (a rather succinct and powerful line in the movie that complements the finale nicely).

The “main theme” of a Raisin in the Sun is its message to never give up on your dreams; the name itself is derived from a Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” which reads “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” A Raisin in the Sun serves not only as a historical source (drawing light to concepts like redlining and the kitchenette buildings of Chicago), but also as a testament to the importance of familial unity and one’s own hopes and dreams. A Raisin in the Sun encourages us to trust that we can prevail over our circumstances. The Younger family teaches us to hold on to our dreams and to cultivate an almost radical belief in ourselves and our loved ones. Hughes’ “Harlem” ends with the inquisitive response “Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”

My blog cannot do half the justice deserved for this movie and I do recommend taking the time to watch it yourselves.