A Raisin in the Sun - Defining Success

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Defining Success From time to time, we all fantasize about what it would be like to be wealthy. A lifestyle complete with fancy sports cars, seven-figure mansions, and $70 steaks at five-star restaurants serve as stereotypes of the upper-class lifestyle and its benefits. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, this potential lifestyle plays an integral role in the plot. For main character Walter Younger, this lifestyle was not simply a fantasy, but an attainable life goal. After a potential investment opportunity provides him the chance to become wealthy, Walter becomes infatuated with the idea of being rich, and affording his son, Travis, the economic advantages that he did not have when he was a child. The irony, however, is that Walter openly expresses his frustration with his job as a chauffeur to wealthy individuals, which he feels is demeaning and unimportant work. This attitude is best displayed when Walter mocks Travis’s desire to become a bus driver when he grows up, claiming that “That ain’t nothing to be!” (Hansberry 496). With this in mind, a salient question arises: What is considered ‘true success’? Walter serves as merely one out of numerous individuals who view material possessions as the sole and authoritative factor in determining one’s success. According to a 2012 study from the San Francisco Federal Reserve, those who make less than $10,000 per year are 50 percent more likely to commit suicide than those making over $60,000 per year (Fairchild). However, there are still the millions of middle and lower class individuals all around the world who, though lacking in material gain, consider themselves to be successful. Their reasoning for this belief vary – family, loved ones, happiness, an enjoyable job, perhaps even the simplicity of their lifestyle – but their belief in having achieved success remains constant, even despite their
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