Mama...They Took the Raisins, Every Last One of Them

Imagine gaining the ability to finally fulfill your dreams after years of struggling.  Then imagine this golden opportunity slip from your grasp in an instant.  This is how Walter Lee and his family felt in the play, "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry. The amount of excruciating pain they went through is unfathomable; however, the family's strength at the very end of the play shows that you should never lose faith in yourself or your dreams.

Living in a crowded little building in the ghettos of Chicago, the Younger family lives a bleak life in which every character dreams that one day, their life will be better.  For example, Walter wishes to become a liquor store owner so that he can support his family financially.  Mama wishes to move out of the small house they live in to live in an actual house with their own bathroom and bedrooms.  These dreams suddenly become a plausible reality when Mama gets a check for ten thousand dollars.  Suddenly, everyone becomes more hopefully as Mama sets off to buy her house and, later, Walter goes off to buy his liquor store.  Just at the peak of their happiness, however, things turn for the worse.  Willy, one of Walter's business partner's, stole of the money he had that wasn't put into the house.  Heartbroken the family looks bleakly to their future.

The true theme of this entire incident is the family's response to their situation.  Despite losing all of their money, their hopes, and their dreams, the family still moves into the house in the white neighborhood.  Knowing very well that by moving there they put themselves in great danger, they still look hopeful to their future and to improving their situation.  This resilience is something that everyone can learn from: that even in the face of utter defeat, never give up hope.