Section B: NON AFRICAN DRAMA
A RAISIN IN THE SUN – LORRAINE HANSBERRY
Trace the transformation of Walter “Into his manhood’ in the play?
Explanation
Walter, as a man, should have been head of the Younger family. Yet, it is Mama who has been at the helm of affairs from the outset. Not satisfied with his station in life, Walter is preoccupied with his dream of making it big through the investment of money that is not his own. He dreams constantly of becoming a self-made man with the backing of his wife, while complaining that no one understands him. Several times he has proved a disappointment to Mama.
Uncaring about what goes on around him, Walter gets a good opportunity of showing himself as the worthy man his mother expects his mother expects him to be when his wife decides to have an abortion. Typically, he is not even aware of his wife's condition
until Mama tells him. Mama urges him to take the bull by the horns and speak firmly to his wife and talk her out of her decision. He falters in this and, bitterly disappointed, Mama calls him a "a disgrace to your father's memory".
When George Murchison calls to take Beneatha out, Walter is inexplicably rude to the young man. He will not leave them alone despite Ruth's many attempts to have him behave civilly. George aptly describes him as " all whacked up with bitterness". On his part, Walter goes on and on about his vision and his being little understood. Unable to see the wisdom in Mama's buying the house with the insurance money, Walter becomes bitter. He is rude at home and even absents himself from work. Hurt because his mother will not approve his liquor business intentions, he gets another chance to prove worthy as head of family "like you supposed to be", when Mama entrusts the remainder of the insurance money to him with specific instructions. Walter speedily goes and hands all of it over to Willy Harris who takes off with the money.
The final opportunity to become the man he should be comes when he rejects Lindner's offer to buy Mama's new home. Bobo's report that Willy has bolted with the money shows that the family has no more of the precious insurance money left. This makes the prospects of moving into 406 Clybourne Street in the white neighbourhood of Clybourne Park particularly bleak and precarious.
The man in Walter emerges, however, and he invites Lindner over. Under a show of accepting the whiteman's offer to buy out the family, and contrary to the family's fears, he rejects the offer. He tells Lindner. "We have decided to move into our house ... don't want your money". All this while, Mama has been showing her approval, "as though she were in church with her head nodding the amen yes".
Thus, from a spineless dreamer and loafer, Walter transforms into a responsible head of the sixth generation Younger family. Henceforth, things look secure in his hands.