A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: The Allusion

In the poem “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, Hughes writes in response to the question, “What happens to a dream deferred,” a line in his poem, “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes). The title of the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is actually an allusion to this poem by Hughes. The plotline of the play mainly consists of the hopes and dreams of the characters in the story. Yet, these dreams primarily go unfulfilled, or “dry up” as the excerpt from the poem suggests. One character, Walter Lee Younger, desperately wishes to invest in a liquor store because he believes it will bring him the money he wants and feels his family deserves. However, Walter’s dream dries up when he loses all of his investment money to a scam artist. Beneatha, another character and Walter’s sister, has had the dream of becoming a doctor ever since she was a child. Because of her desire to succeed in this goal, she works hard in school and has the support of her family. But, as her family goes into turmoil and disagreement, her raisin also begins to dry up as she loses her will to become a doctor. Beneatha states that medicine was “the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do,” (Hansberry, 133), and she wanted to be a part of fixing others. However, it turned out and became apparent to Beneatha that lost dreams were oftentimes more detrimental to a person than an injury, and she could not fix lost dreams. The dried up dreams of the characters relate back to Hughes’ suggested raisin, withered by the sun.