The play Raisin in the Sun is set in Chicago during the 1960s. This play focuses in on a lower-middle class family who has recently lost the man of the house. While the family overcomes how to spend the insurance money it becomes clear that the three main female characters have major differences due to the ways they were raised in their generations. The women often butt heads on different topics like what duties women have in the house and in society. Each generation changes slowly but eventually the differences in them are very clear because of the evolution of duties of women.
Lena (Mama) is a prime example of a woman who was brought up in a pre-World War One era. Although she is strong-willed and not afraid to speak her mind, Lena takes care of her family first and does her duties as a housewife. Once the insurance money has been delivered to her house and she decides how it will be divided, Lena encourages her son, Walter, to step up and be the man of the house. Mama doesn’t want the responsibility of making big decisions which reflects the time period she was raised in: the late 1800s. Mama would have most likely been raised by middle or lower-class parents in a time when women were to be seen and not heard.
If she could read, most of the literature aimed at females was written with the purpose of informing a woman on how to be the best housewife she could be by cleaning and preparing food. In the 1800s, women were not considered equals and had specific expectations: ‘Women were expected to restrict their sphere of interest to the home and the family. Women were not encouraged to obtain a real education or pursue a professional career” (Rights). Lena has dreams of helping her family move up in society and be more comfortable, which is why she wanted to use the money as a down payment on a house.
By providing a house for her family to grow in, she would feel successful as a housewife. Beneatha has dreams outside the kitchen. Her goal is to become a doctor, which was very unheard of at the time since “in 1949 only 5. 5% of entering (medical) students were women” (Lo). Beneatha is very liberal compared to her mother’s conservative views. Beneatha doesn’t want to have the traditional life her mother and sister-in-law have by getting married and settling down. Her career is the most important thing to her and wants to achieve that by getting an education.
Ruth’s standards in men also differ from her female relatives. While she is taken on dates by George Merchison, a wealthy man who could take care of her financially, Ruth finds him incredibly boring and shallow. Joseph Asagai, though poor and non-traditional, has truly captured Ruth’s heart with his sincerity and colorful heritage. Ruth was also brought up when women already had the right to vote or was introduced to it at a young age. This is completely different from the 1800s when Lena was raised when women were punished for voting: “Susan B.
Anthony was arrested, tried, and fined for voting successfully” (Rights). Because she was brought up in a time when women were beginning to have basic rights and be considered more equal, it’s not so scandalous that she wants to have a career before a family. Ruth comes from the middle generation of the three women. Because Ruth is the married with a child and is still a relatively young age, she is the prime candidate to be the housewife. Ruth can be compared closely with Lena, her mother-in-law, because of how much housework she does.
Ruth feels responsible for taking care of her husband, son, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law by feeding them and picking up after them, much like a woman in the 1800s would have done. However, Ruth was raised while World War One was happening, and it is likely that she saw her mother go off to the workforce to replace the men who were being called to the front lines. Ruth probably also saw her mother come back home to be a housewife once the war was over and the men needed the jobs back. Ruth seeing this independence from her mother or from the other women around her gave Ruth a back bone and showed her another duty of the typical housewife.
Ruth doesn’t simply accept the problems she has within her marriage as her fault like the women before her did, she feels the need to stand up for herself to her husband, Walter. Ruth knows that the only way for her to be heard is for her to speak her mind. She is often found telling her husband: “Walter that’s a terrible thing to say! ” (Hansberry 1182). The independence she learned watching her role models also had a factor in the fact that she made up her mind about having an abortion without consulting her husband or other family member first.
Even though she doesn’t go through with it, the decision speaks volumes about her attitude of how women should have more rights, which allows her to be compared easily to her sister-in-law Beneatha. These characters can all be compared and contrasted, but the biggest difference is what they feel their role in society and in a household is. These women come from similar ethnic and social backgrounds, but because of their age differences, who raised them, and what the world around them was doing, their generations changed until three distinct individuals were created.
