A Raisin in the Sun Character Map
Joseph Asagai
One of Beneatha’s suitors: a visiting college student from Nigeria.
DREAM:
Revolution. To return to Nigeria and overthrow colonial rule and improve lives he now sees plagued by “illiteracy and disease and ignorance”—with Beneatha by his side as his wife.
WHAT HE’LL SACRIFICE: His life. He understands that change might be violent—and he’s willing to “be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of empire.”
George Murchison
One of Beneatha’s suitors: a fellow college student from a wealthy African American family.
DREAM:
Status. To sustain—or even further—his family’s status and wealth by earning a college degree, frequenting cultural events like the theater, and wearing stylish clothes—all with a girl on his arm.
WHAT HE’LL SACRIFICE: Authenticity. He is more interested in a degree than an education, saying: “It’s simple, you read books—to learn facts— to get grades—to pass the course—to get a degree. That’s all—it has nothing to do with thoughts.”
Karl Lindner
A representative from the ironically named “welcoming committee” of the family’s prospective new neighborhood, Clybourne Park.
DREAM:
Maintaining his all-white neighborhood, or as he euphemizes: “The kind of community we want to raise our children in.”
WHAT HE’LL SACRIFICE: Money. He and others from his neighborhood have pooled money to buy the house back from the Younger family for more than they paid.
WHAT HE WON’T:
Decency—or so he claims. He clings to his self-conception as a decent man, insisting “that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it” and even claiming he’s working for the greater good, since he believes everyone’s happier living among folks from a “common background.”
Look at how Hughes emphasizes the question in this first stanza by rhyming “sun” with “run.” He compares the image of a raisin drying up
with that of an oozing, festering sore. What are the contrasts between those two images?
This stanza follows the same technique as above. The rotting of meat is contrasted to
something syrupy sweet. How do those images make you feel?
Bobo
A friend of Walter Lee’s, Bobo partners with him and Willy Harris to open a liquor store.
DREAM:
The liquor store.
WHAT HE’LL SACRIFICE: His savings. He puts it all on the line, and like Walter, he’s financially ruined by Willy’s con.
WHAT HE WON’T:
Decency. Hansberry emphasizes that “Bobo is not a con-man but a victim,” just like Walter, and his choice to go to Walter to let him know what happened “is an act of great courage.”
5
A Poet’
Notice how this is the only line in the poem that does not pose a
question. It is different than the final stanza both in structure and in style. This suggests the weight of a burden, while the final line suggests an explosion.
