Spotlight: On "He is A Fool" Discussion

Mama said George Murchison and Booker T. are both fools because they think Afican-Americans should only do whatever needs to be done--not an education. They don't realize education is part of self-fulfillment.

According to George in A Raisin in the Sun he said to Beneatha(who is well educated)," I don't go out with you to discuss the nature of "quiet desperation" or to hear all about your thoughts--because the world will go on thinking what it thinks regardless..." meaning he thinks learning doesn't have to do with thought.

From what Mrs. Johnson said about Booker T. Washington,"...I always thinks like Booker T. Washington said that time--" Education has spoiled many a good plow hand." Which I think means he saying since more people of his race is having an education, there's no one else to serve the whites, which I think is wrong as the time of slavery has ended, and things should start to change--not stay the same.

Both George and Booker T. think that achieveing economic respect can get you accepted in white society. They don't think knowledge, and understanding your heritage will help change society. That's what they both have in common.

Spotlight: On Beneatha and Mama

Many characters in literature, as in life, usually search for a new way of life. The first character in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry who wants a better way of life is Beneatha. Unlike Walter, Ruth, and Mama who have given up on education, Beneatha took this oppurtunity to get an education and become a doctor.

Beneatha is hoping to gain the acceptance from her family that she doesn't have to follow the usual way of getting married to someone with money and then worrying about education, as stated on page 50: "Listen, I'm going to be a doctor. I'm not worried about who I'm marrying yet--if I ever get married." Beneatha attempts to bring out the change in her life by reconnecting to her roots in Africa on page 77 where she dances to a folk dance from Nigeria in a Nigerian robe her friend Asagai, and be one of the many few women in 1959 becoming a doctor.

Another character fron A Raisn in the Sun who wants to change their way of life is Mama. Mama wants to change her way of life by getting that house with a garden where she would grow many plants she and her late husband Walter always dreamed of. But the only garden she has in the Younger apartment is a shriveled plant in a pot after her husband commited suicide. Like she said on page 45, " And didn't none of it happen." But something did happen. Upon recieving the $10,000 check, she attempts to bring about this change by buying a house for the whole Younger family hoping to gain back the falling pieces that her family was losing. Although her son, Walter, wasn't happy about her doing she tells him " When it gets like that in life--you just got to do something different, push on out and do something bigger."

In literature, as in life, a character may search for a better way of life. And how they search for it, what they hope to gain, and their attempts to bring about change, pulls them closer to their own identity.