A Million Pathways to Happiness
Can you remember a time when you were happy? What caused it? How long did it last? Happiness can be achieved a million different ways whether it’s by other people or by a material object. Many ways of achieving happiness is shown in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry but the morale of the characters in this play on achieving happiness raises the ultimate question of the play; did they actually receive happiness through their wants and needs or did they receive it through those ambitions falling through? All of the characters in the play went through different ways of attaining happiness. For example, take the main characters Walter and Ruth. Walter went about it by setting a goal of economic prosperity …show more content…
This ambition caused him to continuously lash out on his family and even his own race like when he blamed his fellow African Americans for his misfortunes, he said, “Why? You want to know why? ‘Cause we all tied up in a race of people that don’t know how to do nothing but moan, pray and have babies!”(II.i.). His mother finally gave him the money and he pursued his happiness at the expense of his family’s feelings. For example, Benetha tells mama, “Love him [Walter]? There is nothing left to love” (III. Iii.) In the end, he lost the money but learned that money doesn’t make a man, money doesn’t make racism go away and money doesn’t make you truly happy. But that is just one pursuit of happiness, trial and error; finding what makes you happy through all the things that don’t. There is no one right way to achieve happiness and because Walter was driven by something that ultimately didn’t make him happy doesn’t mean he pursued happiness wrong, he just did it in a different way. But that doesn’t make what he did right either. He hurt the people he loved and cause pain which doesn’t make it the best or even a good way to achieve happiness. Throughout life you are going to make mistakes, trial and error is necessary to learn what is right and what is wrong. I do not think Walter made the best approach possible in achieving his happiness but he was blinded by greed and that drove him to the brink of madness. Walter even says himself, “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…” (I.ii). When he realized what all of the madness was doing to his family, he grew up and made the right decision and only then did he achieve
Can you remember a time when you were happy? What caused it? How long did it last? Happiness can be achieved a million different ways whether it’s by other people or by a material object. Many ways of achieving happiness is shown in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry but the morale of the characters in this play on achieving happiness raises the ultimate question of the play; did they actually receive happiness through their wants and needs or did they receive it through those ambitions falling through? All of the characters in the play went through different ways of attaining happiness. For example, take the main characters Walter and Ruth. Walter went about it by setting a goal of economic prosperity …show more content…
This ambition caused him to continuously lash out on his family and even his own race like when he blamed his fellow African Americans for his misfortunes, he said, “Why? You want to know why? ‘Cause we all tied up in a race of people that don’t know how to do nothing but moan, pray and have babies!”(II.i.). His mother finally gave him the money and he pursued his happiness at the expense of his family’s feelings. For example, Benetha tells mama, “Love him [Walter]? There is nothing left to love” (III. Iii.) In the end, he lost the money but learned that money doesn’t make a man, money doesn’t make racism go away and money doesn’t make you truly happy. But that is just one pursuit of happiness, trial and error; finding what makes you happy through all the things that don’t. There is no one right way to achieve happiness and because Walter was driven by something that ultimately didn’t make him happy doesn’t mean he pursued happiness wrong, he just did it in a different way. But that doesn’t make what he did right either. He hurt the people he loved and cause pain which doesn’t make it the best or even a good way to achieve happiness. Throughout life you are going to make mistakes, trial and error is necessary to learn what is right and what is wrong. I do not think Walter made the best approach possible in achieving his happiness but he was blinded by greed and that drove him to the brink of madness. Walter even says himself, “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…” (I.ii). When he realized what all of the madness was doing to his family, he grew up and made the right decision and only then did he achieve