One of my favorite things about this story is how everything comes back around in the end. The play starts out with Walter and Ruth arguing. At one point Ruth calls Willy Harris a “good-for-nothing loudmouth” (32) and then as you all know, Willy Harris ran off with the Youngers money. Early on in the story Walter is harassing Beneatha about wanting to be a doctor and then the play ends with Walter poking fun at Beneatha telling her to marry George Murchison. In the second scene Beneatha says “I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet – if I ever get married” (50) and then in the third scene Asagai asks her to marry him and move to Nigeria, where she wouldn’t need the money that Walter gave away.
Like Meagan mentioned, another good example of this is Mama and her plant. One of the first things Mama said was “Lord, if this little old plant don’t get more sun than its been getting it ain’t never going to see spring again” (40). The play then ends with the plant in Mama’s hands, on its way to the new home where it’s going to get planted in a garden and live a good life, just like Mama.
In the beginning of this, the entire family is desperate for money. Ruth tells Travis that she can’t give him 50 cents, although the value of money has inflated over the years that’s still wasn’t a lot of money. In the end, the family turns down Mr. Lindner’s offer for the second time, although they still don’t have a lot of money, they still have each other and a fresh start ahead of them; which is more important than material things like money, and a nice Chrysler with black wheels or a new Cadillac. I feel like these are the values mama wants her children to be instilled with. Throughout the book she’s constantly bringing up how her children are always talking and thinking about money and how much she doesn’t like it.
Questions:
What are some other examples of things coming around full circle that you noticed when reading or watching the movie?
One thing I noticed that was different about the movie was that the scene with Mrs. Johnson was left out. What are some differences between the book and the movie that you noticed?
For my poem I chose to start with the lyrics to the song Gucci Gang by Lil Pump and I extracted all of the Gucci gangs; all forty-eight of them so you can see them by themselves to get a feel for just how repetitive the song is. I chose this because I’m not really into literature or politics enough to get angry about a bill, law, or text, but I do love music.