Raisin in the Sun's Central Idea of Pride

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Pride is a high opinion of one's own dignity. It's a powerful feeling, so powerful that it can power a person to make irrational decisions with the best of intentions. Pride plays a big role in A Raisin in the Sun since the play illustrates people who don't have much to their name, pride is a thing for them to hold on to along with their dignity and state their worth as human beings. Lorraine Hansberry touches on pride in her play A Raisin in the Sun through using a character named Walter Lee. Walter is also too proud to take responsibility for his problems, so he pushes them off on other people as if nothing is his fault. From the beginning of the play, we see that from the moment Walter wakes up, he was arguing with Ruth. When Walter decides to go to the bathroom, Ruth tells him that Travis is in there. Walter says "He just going to have to start getting up earlier. I can't be being late to work on account of him fooling around in there." (Hansberry p. 26) This situation clearly shows that Walter blames others for his problems. When he’s late for work, he blames his son for using the bathroom when he should be blaming himself for keeping his son up late then not getting up early enough. Walter's also struggles to find pride in himself leads him to develop a false sense of pride. One morning before school, Travis asked Ruth for some money which he was told to bring to school. Ruth denied him the money, stating that the family can not afford it. Walter walks in on this conversation and wants to make sure that Travis sees him as a provider. He responds to Ruth "What you tell the boy things like that for?" (Hansberry p.31) and then gave Travis twice as much as he had asked for. Walter wants to appear as the provider in the family. By doing things like giving Travis money that he doesn't have, he convinces himself that he is providing for his family. A short time

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