On the same day that the check arrives, Ruth finds out that she is pregnant, which makes her question whether the family can afford to raise another child. Ruth, worried about her troubled marriage and the family’s cramped living situation, shares Mama’s hope for a house, although she is willing to support her husband’s dream because, as she tells Mama, “He needs this chance.” Walter finds his job as a white man’s chauffeur demeaning and he sees the liquor store investment as the only path towards a better future. Walter wants to use the insurance payment as an investment in a liquor store, an idea that Mama and his wife Ruth both dislike. Beneatha’s older brother, Walter Lee, belittles his sister’s dream, instead suggesting that she simply get married. Mama’s daughter, Beneatha, aspires to attend medical school and become a doctor, a considerable challenge for an African-American woman at that time. Mama tells her daughter-in-law, Ruth, that she and her late husband shared the dream of owning a house, but that poverty and racism prevented them from fulfilling this dream during Big Walter’s lifetime. However, the members of the Younger family have conflicting ideas-conflicting dreams-regarding the best use for the money, which causes tension.Īt the beginning of the play Mama, Big Walter’s widow, expresses uncertainty regarding the best use for the money. The family eagerly awaits the arrival of the insurance check, which has the potential to make the family’s long deferred dreams into reality. Shortly before the play begins, the head of the Younger family, Big Walter, dies, leaving the family to inherit a $10,000 life insurance payment. The play centers on the Youngers, a working-class family that lives in Chicago’s South Side during the mid-twentieth century. A Raisin in the Sun examines the effects of racial prejudice on the fulfillment of an African-American family’s dreams.

A raisin in the sun book