Happiness In A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry

Happiness is defined as “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment” (according to google), happiness might be achieved through your own self goals and accomplishments, or some people might achieve happiness through watching other fellow friends or family achieve their goals. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry many characters reflect on what people will make them happy and how it affected their relationship with their family members, some of the family members becoming selfish and some striving to keep the family together. This paragraph is meant to explain the story and conflict, we are first introduced to three characters: Travis(Ruth and Walter’s son), Ruth, and Walter Lee(Walter). Travis is more of a supporting character …show more content…
For one, Walter Lee wanted to make a deal to with two of his other friends to start a liquor business with all of the ten thousand dollars, as shown “Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be bout’ thirty thousand, see. That would be ten thousand each.”, but Mama believed in was a useless investment and said “Well-whether they drinks it or not ain’t none of my business. But whether I go into the business selling it to ‘em is, and I don’t want that on my ledger this late in life.”, and was more concerned about saving money for Beneatha going to medical school, and getting an education. Later in the book we learn that Moma believed the right thing to do with the money was to purchase a house which she did later in the book and purchased in “Clybourne Park” which is a white neighborhood. When you see characters like Walter Lee trying to start a liquor store it is his goal is to make money and for him money equals happiness, not all of his family agrees with his views and how he makes the money of course, but that is what it means to have different opinions and end goals for happiness. For example, Mama went out and bought a house for the family because she believed that buying the house will make everyone happy because they will be a bigger space and nicer area and feel more comfortable, this will lead all of the characters being …show more content…
The first “essay” was by Rico Iyer a English Literature graduate from Oxford University and earned a master's degree in English and American language and literature from Harvard, Iyer worked for Time Magazine for four years but felt constrained by office life, and begun as a freelance writer since 1986, and while in “nowhere” Japan he wrote about his idea of happiness. He listed many examples of authors to poets about how they view their life and the obstacles and circumstances they live(d) through and as a made a very true opinion and statement at the end the examples which said “I did begin to guess that happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense.”. I believe this is true even in A Raisin in the Sun because you see a family who is living in a small apartment and low level jobs affects their relationship with one another, but Iyer explains that these circumstances do not matter in our happiness. This idea is later expanded upon because we learn that Iyer is living in a two-room apartment, with no car, no phone, no television, and no media, and he enjoys this because he finds true happiness living the way he is. The other essay I read was by Walter Mosley, a former computer programmer who turned writer, he attended Goddard College, and received a degree in political science from Johnson State College, and after