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On September 27th I attended an event called Teacher-Scholar: a Conversation with New Faculty in the English Department.” This event took place in Corey Union’s Fireplace Longue and allowed me to talk and connect in an informal manner with members of SUNY Cortland’s english department. The panel consisted of four members of the school’s faculty that are new to campus this year. Laura D, Danica Savonick, Jeffrey Jackson, and Katie Ahern provided me, as well as the rest of the group, with extensive information on what it means to truly be a teacher let alone a professor. Each spoke of how they incorporate their own interests into the classroom and implement them into certain aspects of their class. For example, Jeffrey Jackson talked of his passion for technology and how some semesters he aims to be paperless. Specifically he used technology in an experiment in the posting of his assignments on blackboard. Jeffrey made it so that in order to do one assignment, you must do all because the next assignment would only appear and unlock after the previous one was completed. This showed his implication of his interests into how he runs his classroom. This aso represented building towards a goal. By locking the assignments Jeffrey said it was “as if one must get over one hurdle before they take on the next one.” I thought this was a brilliant idea in that it allowed him to incorporate his own personal interests into the classroom in a way that teaches students a bigger life lesson.

 

Jeffrey Jackson specifically stuck me as extremely interesting in providing his insight about teaching as a whole. He stressed two particular ideas that I believe are extremely essential in being an educator. The first was the idea of failure. Jeffrey stated that failure is a learning experience and teachers “must recognize failure and provide students with room to fail, learn, and come back stronger on the other side of it.” Although failure is  an extremely frightening idea in a public classroom setting, without it students would not personally experience the idea of continuing on in hopes of preserving next time. In addition to failure Jeffrey also stressed the importance of an instructor multitasking. He said that “teachers are seen as just providing information to students, but it is so much more that that. One must gather information about their students and their trend/vibe as their teaching in order to find methods that work best for these individuals. This leads to experiments in lesson plans with the notion that this technique may very well fail completely.

 

I thought that all these speakers gave us as students amazing insight as to how much work they do behind the scenes of the classroom. I also was fascinated in how they discussed confidence in the sense that they know that there is realistically a possible chance that their lesson plans could fail completely, or their interactive activities may fall apart. The message that I truly got from this seminar was that educating others is all about trial and error, and working with students in ways that is best for their learning. All in all I thought the discussion was extremely enlightening and I am grateful that these are the types of people SUNY Cortland is bringing into their faculty year after year.

The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, starts with the first chapter, “No Name Woman”, with Kingston’s Mother telling her about the Aunt that was never spoken of.  Her aunt brought shame to the family because of adultery and was pregnant with a child that did not belong to her husband. Her mother proceeds to emphasize on the consequences of violence the village had brought to their family on the night the baby was due to be born.  The villagers raided their house, destroying absolutely everything valuable to them while the family stood their helplessly watching. The aftermath left her shunned by the family, as they said, “Aiaa, we’re going to die. Death is coming. Look what you’ve done. You’ve killed us. Ghost! Dead ghost! Ghost! You’ve never been born” (14).  Her aunt ran off that night, and was left alone to give birth in a pigsty because “old fashioned women gave birth in their pigsties to fool the jealous, pain-dealing gods, who do not snatch piglets.”(14). The morning after, Kingston’s mother went for water and found her sister in-law and the newborn child plugging up the family well.

While Kingston questions her aunt’s actions, it seems like she is trying to uncover valid excuses as to why she did what she did.  An example of this would be on page 6, where Kingston says “Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil. I wonder whether he masked himself when he joined the raid on her family”.  Kingston is looking at her aunt’s actions in very different ways from the family and is thinking deeply into how her aunt could have met this man, or if she was in need of something in return. The thought of her aunt drowning herself and her newborn child in the family well seems selfish, or out of spite but Kingston then says, “Carrying the baby to the well shows loving. Otherwise abandon it.  Turn its face in the mud. Mothers who love their children take them along. It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys.” (15).

The reason Kingston’s Mother is telling her this story is to warn her and says, “Now that you are starting to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us.”(5) This is seen as what she calls, “…a story to grow up on” (5).  The story leaves Kingston with curiosity and fixation about her aunt who was never spoken of; what really happened to her, and why she is never allowed to ask. Kingston recreates this story of her aunt deciding if it will bring her mind at peace or if it will haunt her.  She ends by writing “The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute.” (16) This gives us the idea that her aunt is in fact haunting her and influences her way of thinking.

 

Questions to think about:

1. Towards the end of the chapter, Kingston writes: “My aunt haunts me-her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, though not origamied into houses and clothes.” (16). Do you think Kingston’s curiosity of the disgrace her Aunt brought upon her family is a good thing? Why or why not?
2. Do you think the Chinese cultural beliefs had an impact on the families’ perception of her Aunt’s actions? Why or why not?

 

In the book The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, the theme in the story of the “No Name Woman” is shame. The opening statement from the author’s mother is, “You must not tell anyone… She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born” (Kingston 8). This theme of shame/humiliation on a family is seen multiple times throughout the chapter. “Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born” (Kingston 10). In the Chinese culture, the worst thing a child can do is do something foolish that would reflect badly on their family. This can be anything from not getting good grades, affairs, and a pregnancy prior to marriage.

As an Asian-American myself, I can relate to Kingston’s story about how much your actions can reflect on your family. A female family member on my mother’s side had a child out of wedlock, she was disowned by her parents and the rest of my family pretends like she never existed. This is very similar to Kingston’s story of her aunt, they both became outcasts in their families. I was a child when my mom told me that story and I thought nothing about it. “But there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in her punishment. And I have” (Kingston 20). Kingston’s aunt was deliberately forgotten by her own family.

There is a Chinese tradition that usually takes place on Chinese New Year where fake paper money, clothes, and other material items are burned for the ancestors to spend and use in the afterlife. Food is placed out for these ancestors so they can feast with the living. “Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death. Always hungry, always needing, she would have to beg food from other ghosts, snatch and steal it from those whose living descendants give them gifts,” (Kingston 20). They are so ashamed, so humiliated by her having another man’s child and for committing suicide that it is easier to forget her existence.

In the United States, we still face judgments of our actions but not as drastic as Kingston’s family. People outside of the Chinese culture will think that is cruel and unusual punishment, but this is completely normal to me. But as I grew older, I’ve realized that it isn’t normal at all, that practices my family have aren’t normal. “Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?” (Kingston 10). This is a struggle a lot of Asian-Americans face, an identity crisis of not feeling completely Asian because of growing up in the U.S. and assimilating to a “white culture”.

Questions:

Is there anything in your culture or lifestyle that can be seen as “not normal” in today’s society?

In what ways have some cultures assimilated to what can be expressed as “white culture”?

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?

 

Symbolism, the use of symbols to represent ideas, has been a common use of figurative language in writing for many years. Lorraine Hansberry uses this type of visual description throughout the play. The main example of this is the way the author uses the image of MAMA’s deprived and “feeble” plant to illustrate a deeper connection to MAMA’s dreams.

When MAMA first enters the play, the first thing she immediately does is tend to her plant in the window. The author wants the reader to understand that although the small plant is considered almost dead it is persistently attempting to grow with the little amount of sunlight that it receives (39, 52). The dream that reoccurs in the play is MAMA’s hope of moving out of the apartment, that she and Big Walter bought right after they got married, and move into a two-story house with a garden (45). Hansberry’s use of symbolism is interesting here. The lifeless plant, that is barely surviving from lack of nourishment, represents MAMA’s dream garden. MAMA didn’t have the opportunity to fulfill her dreams due to putting the needs of the family first but, she still cares for the plant every day. The plants’ purpose of representing the dream of a garden/new home is illustrated in Act 1 Scene 1. The author writes “Well I always wanted me a garden like used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one … Lord, ain’t nothing as dreary as the view from this window on a dreary day is there? (53)” The last sentence in this quote has many possible meanings, but the view that strikes me is that MAMA is describing the “view” from the perspective of looking at the window not out of it. The barely living plant sitting on a windowsill, getting little to no light, and fighting to survive is a depressing sight for MAMA. The lifeless presence of the plant reminds her of the dream “deferred” or, in other words, a dream put on the shelf untouched.

When Big Walter passed MAMA made the decision to use a big portion of the insurance check for a down payment on a house, she was one step closer to achieving her and Big Walter’s dream until the rest of the money was stolen from them. The loss of the money deterred MAMA and the Younger family from moving into the new house. Hansberry describes this scene, “MAMA enters from her bedroom. She is lost, vague, trying to catch hold, to make some sense of her former command of the world, but it still eludes her… She goes to her plant, which has remained on the table, looks at it, picks it up and takes it to the windowsill and sits it outside, and she stands and looks at it a long moment. (139)” Distraught and emotionally drained from the emotional rollercoaster that is her life, MAMA puts the plant back into its usual spot. It is portrayed that by putting back the pot, MAMA is giving up on the dream once again, confident that it will likely not happen and that her life will remain the same. In the last stage direction of the play, Hansberry closes with MAMA packing up the last of the house, “MAMA stands, at last alone in the living room, her plant on the table before her as the lights start to come down … The lights dim down. The door opens and she comes back in, grabs her plant, and goes out for the last time. (151)”  MAMA grabbing the plant at the end is so important to this figurative theory behind the symbolic purpose of the plant. MAMA going back in the house to grab it and take it with her to the new Younger residence represents the conclusion of their life in the apartment and symbolizes the fulfillment of her and Big Walter’s dream.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER:

Having read and watched A Raisin In The Sun, what purpose do you think Lorraine Hansberry had when she decided on the title of this play? What message was she trying to portray?

How can we compare the imagery of Langston Hughes’ a raisin in the sun to Hansberry’s symbol of MAMA’s beloved plant?

There has been many themes that I have noticed not only in Act II of A Raisin in the Sun, but throughout the whole text. One theme that has really stuck out to me though, is that many people in the text live off of each others approval in the Younger family.

Beneatha is an extremely strong and powerful woman. Although she has no problem making decisions on her own, getting the approval from her mama means absolutely everything to her. In the text during Act II, Beneatha is trying to enjoy her time with George. As George wants to do more than just talk, we see that Beneatha wants to only communicate in interesting conversations with him. Not anything more than that. Later on as George storms off, Beneatha takes a moment to explain to her mom that George is a “fool”. Mama then says “Well- I guess you better not waste your time with no fools” (98). Beneatha continues on with showing she is thankful and grateful but Mama is then confused why. Beneatha then states “For understanding me this time” (98). Just with something that small, Beneatha expresses with a very limited amount of words, how thankful she is for how her mom reacted. That for once her mom agreed with her and believed that she was making the right choice and assumption about her relationship with George.

Walter seems to struggle with how to love his life and how to have self confidence. How the cards have been dealt to him, do you blame him? Not only does he want to own a liquor store and make money, but he truly wants (and NEEDS) someone to believe in him and what he can do to make the life for his family members a more enjoyable life to live. Think about the way he reacted when George was at the house while he was drunk. Walter had some ideas to share with George and George’s dad (and seemed to be very excited about it), but George answered sarcastically like it didn’t matter. He at that point wanted someone to believe in him. Later on in Act II, (as read by everyone) we now know that Mama is going to give some of the money she has to Walter for him to do what he wants with it and what he thinks is best for the family. What was his reaction to this? “(stares at the money) You trust me like that, Mama?” (107). Just in that sentence it was clear that it was not the money he was concerned about (at that point), but it’s him knowing that his mom believes in him. Her approval for him to do something and make changes for his family was now showing the faith she had in him.

There has been so many themes that have caught my attention throughout A Raisin in the Sun. As shown, one that has really stood out to me is that the people who are apart of the Younger family really like the approval and support from other people. Not just that, but for their family members to believe and have faith in them.

Some questions to think about:

What is another time in the story where someone believed in another and it meant the world to them?

If Walter makes something good come out of the money for his family, is his mom believing him in a big part of why it happened? Why or why not?

 

 

 

 

In Act II of A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, there are so many important things happening in the plot line.  We are fully now in understanding what the family dynamics are and what kinds of things all of the characters are struggling with.

We now know that Mama has decided what to do with the insurance money that she received. There is one theme that I keep seeing in this text and it is becoming more and more apparent as I read on. That theme relates to gender roles and the function they play in the family dynamics and even in society as a whole.

Walter is the prime example of an African American male that is struggling with his identity as a man, as a husband, and as a son. Walter talks about how much he hates his job and how frustrating it is for him not to be able to fully support his family and how unfulfilling his job actually is to him. It really highlights the internal struggle that must be going on inside of him every day.

I want to draw attention to a specific part of the Hansberry text where she writes “(He makes his weaving way to his wife’s face and leans in close to her) In my heart of hearts (He thumps his chest) I am much warrior!”(78) . This is a scene where Walter is taking on the persona of a an African warrior man who is prideful, fierce, and protecting of his family and his life. I don’t think Walter feels that kind of passion at all in his real life as it is, and that is HIS dream. Everyone has their dream in this play, and dreams are very important to understanding the text.

Perhaps Walter’s struggle is the reason that he has become an alcoholic and is so down on his life. He feels his dreams are slipping away day by day and he can’t do anything to control or stop it. That feeling of helplessness leads to shame for the fact that he can’t even take care of his growing family and support his wife the way he thinks a man should, which in turn may make him resent his wife and the other women in his family in one way or another.

 

I will leave you all with some questions to think about in relation to this topic:

What could happen if Walter continues on the bad path that he is on? Consider the example he is setting for his son and the cycle perhaps continuing with Travis.

Can you think of present day issues or examples that are similar to what Walter is going through?

Easily, the most interesting plot point in act 1 of A Raisin in the Sun is Walter and Beneatha’s exchange over who is entitled to their late father’s insurance money. Beneatha argues that because it’s Mama’s money, only she can decide on how to use it. Walter claims that it is unfair for Beneatha to accept Mama’s money to help pay for her medical school. Walter makes it seem as though his opposition to her career choice is only based upon the fact that the rest of the family has had to make sacrifices because of it. At the height of their argument, Walter says “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people-then go be a nurse like other women-or just get married and be quiet.” This statement proves that Walter opposes Beneatha’s plight not only because she is using Mama’s money, but also because she’s a woman. Because this play is based in the 1950s, blatant sexism was a lot more common and accepted. Beneatha was extremely progressive in her aspirations, whether she cared or not. She is an extremely strong-willed and intelligent woman, and back then this threatened men, especially men who had trouble supporting their own wives and children, like Walter. I believe this is the reason sexism went on for much longer than it should have. Men, who for millenniums have been the hunter, the breadwinner, the leader, were threatened by women who believed they were more than someone to cook for you. To clean for you. To raise your kids for you. Beneatha is a wonderful example of women in the second wave of feminism. These were the women who realized they deserved more than just the right to vote, and all American women today should be thankful for their strength. Unfortunately, feminism today has taken a wrong turn. While feminism is still extremely necessary and important in many countries across the world, in America, women are very much equal to men in 2018. Third wave feminism in America is, in my opinion an unnecessary force which is driving apart political peace in the US.

In the first act of A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha a very young African American female, aspires to become a doctor. Though many people, including her own family members, found her aspirations to be silly, she continued with her schooling. Today, female doctors are not uncommon, and women are seen in an array of different career fields. Though women today are equal to men, the feminist movement hasn’t come to an end. Do you believe that modern feminism is still necessary in today’s progressive society? Why? Why not?

Throughout Act 1 of A Raisin in the Sun, Mama is often portrayed as an almighty figure that must be respected, mostly because she is the character who has the money. Though Beneatha doesn’t exactly care about money in general as much as she cares about being able to make her own money, she disrespects the symbolic figurehead of the story. Mama believes that Beneatha will be able to be a doctor if God allows it to happen. This upsets Beneatha, because she’s “tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves.” More specifically, she doesn’t agree with anyone else getting credit for all the hard work she is doing to make a life for herself, not even God. Being an atheist in the 1950s was probably even more unacceptable than being a woman doctor. Beneatha is slapped by her mother who forces her to repeat the phrase “In my mother’s house there is still God.” I found this scene extremely disturbing. Religious discrimination may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you mention A Raisin in the Sun, and yet this scene is the one that most resonated with me because of its intensity. Beneatha doesn’t even have the free will to not believe in God in her own home, though I guess she’s free to think whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t speak it aloud. It’s obvious that religion is extremely important to Mama.

Do you think it was disrespectful for Beneatha to voice her religious views even though she knew it would upset her mother, the woman who pays for her medical school and supports her in many other ways? Or do you think that Beneatha voicing her religious views is just another trait that shows how strong willed and progressive she is for her time?

Oppression has existed, in some form, for centuries. This text by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, exhibits many forms and examples of oppression. However, I took particular notice to the oppression of women. I noticed several examples of this happening throughout the Act, some more direct and apparent than others. A Raisin in the Sun was written nearly forty years after women gained their freedom as equal citizens and yet, they continued to be marginalized.

Initially, I only noticed the more apparent examples of oppression. For example, Walter speaking to his younger sister, Beneatha, saying, “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people – then go be a nurse like other women – or just get married and be quiet …” (Hansberry, 38). Asagai speaks similarly to Beneatha. He claims that there is only one type of feeling that can exist between a man and a woman. However, Beneatha disagrees saying that those feelings, by themselves, are not enough for her (63). Ultimately, she wants more but Asagai retorts with one of the most oppressive lines in the entire Act – saying, “For a woman it should be enough” (63).

Upon closer read I was able to catch some of the subtler ways that women were being marginalized throughout the Act. For example, Beneatha wants to go to school to be a doctor, she also plays the guitar, took horseback lessons, and took photography lessons. In modern days it is not out of place at all to see a woman doing all of this. However, in 1959 people did not react the same as they would now. The women encouraged her, excited that a woman would be taking these risks and standing out; while the men reacted in a very different way, believing these things to be silly pass times. Another subtle example occurred when Ruth and Walter were having an argument. Walter, feeling like his wife is not on his side, yells at her saying, “This is what is wrong with the colored women in this world … Don’t understand about building their men up and making ‘em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something” (34). At first, it simply sounded like he was mad that she didn’t agree with him but then I noticed that this seems to be what he believes a woman’s sole purpose is. That they are owned by their men and that their only purpose is to build their men up. This may not be the intent of the line but regardless, it shows a very specific example of the marginalization of women in the 1950’s.

Despite this oppression and marginalization that was clearly occurring throughout this Act, the reader/audience can clearly see the little ways in which these women rebelled. The way that Beneatha explains her many hobbies saying, “I don’t flit! I – I experiment with different forms of expression – ” (48). She fights for her identity and her freedom to express herself through any means that she desires. Another prime example is when Ruth is contemplating an abortion. Mama explains this to Walter by saying, “When the world gets ugly enough – a woman will do anything for her family. The part that’s already living” (75). Mama is trying to explain how strong women are and how they will do anything for their families despite the constant marginalization from many of the men.

You can see the little ways that the women in this story fight against this oppression and marginalization. They receive little respect for what they do and yet they continued to fight and to the benefit of our modern generation. I’m not saying that women are completely free of all oppression but I am saying that — because of women like Beneatha, Ruth, and Mama – our generation of women now have the potential to live nearly any life we desire.

Questions:

1. In what ways might modern women continue to fight against oppression? Are women completely free of marginalization or must the still endure it and fight against it in some aspects of life?
2. I brought up several examples of how women were oppressed and marginalized throughout this Act. Do you believe that all women were enduring these conditions or were these conditions primarily caused by the financial and racial standing of this family? Use examples from the text to explain your answer.

The Younger family is a melting pot of critical issues, being held together very loosely by its familial bonds. Several issues of the story thus far relate heavily to real-world issues that faced the country decades ago in the time period the text is based, but also in the world today. Conflicts of the issues mesh together, however, unfortunately, into one family, the Youngers. The country today suffers from not understanding that all the issues of today have been serious issues of the past. The text offers an opportunity for readers to observe clarity, however, the amount of clarity may be, by applying all the issues into an intriguing story of money and family matters.

The first major issue which looms over the entire family is money. Money is the great stabilizer and destabilizer in any society and family. When money becomes an issue, it penetrates each member of a family and changes everyone emotionally at some level. In the text, Ruth, the mother of Travis and wife of Walter feels the heavy burden of economic stress at multiple levels. I believe this because she attempts to keep the family in order in multiple ways. She has a job, to rake in whatever income she can while Travis is away at school, She wakes up earlier than anyone else in the house so her young son has breakfast for school, and that her son and husband are awake to be ready for the day. She attempts to brunt the burden of the economic strain on her own, since her husband is an absent drunk, except for when it comes to him wanting something from someone else. This struggle is immense on anyone on its own, however, it is enlarged immensely when she discovers she is pregnant. Incorporating the issue of barely managing to get by with one child, she now suffers, essentially alone, with the burden of deciding whether she should keep the child or sacrifice the life of an unborn for the child she has living. This is an issue that is not only present in fictional stories but common in society globally today. Whether by mistake or not, economic struggle produces immense struggle out of nowhere at times and the question of if it’s manageable;e to have a child or not, may not just be as easy as some groups would claim.

Another, strong figure in the text who has a major part in the economic situation of the Youngers is Mama. Mama is the mother of Walter, who is allowing her son’s family to stay with her. She recently lost her husband and has insurance money from his death coming. She says that she wants some of the ten-thousand-dollar check must be put away for her daughter Beneatha’s schooling. She also intends to possibly buy a better living area for the whole family, somewhere which young Travis could play in a yard and enjoy life more than in the old and dilapidated apartment the whole family currently lives in. Mama struggles with her son Walter however, who continues to use his mothers money as if it is his own. She must continuously refuse him the money because she wants the money to put the family somewhere better, whereas he wants a liquor store, which both his wife and mother do not think is a good idea, especially for a drunk. Mama struggles immensely toward the end of Act One because of Ruth’s pregnancy and attempts to get Walter to convince his wife to keep the child, however, Walter isn’t able to even talk to either of the women in the room. Although Mama attempts to keep the family on its feet financially, the issues continue to build upon an already struggling family. Many families have someone like Mama, who attempts to keep the family moving toward a better life, even with the path is long and without an end in sight. She attempts to keep their faith in a better life, especially with the potential to use the insurance money as a lifeboat to a better place. However, with Ruth now pregnant, the family is experiencing a whole new issue that they all are not prepared for.

Is the struggle against Walters plan for a Liquor Store a benefit or hindrance to the developing family struggle of the Younger’s?

Is the struggle of the pregnancy able to be remedied with the money Mama received from the insurance, or is the issues more than just money when it comes to the pregnancy?