5. Consider the role of Mrs Johnson in the development of the plot.
6. Account for Walter's expectations in the play.
5. The role of Mrs Johnson in the development of the plot
In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the plot is the unfolding of events by which a poor African American family, the Youngers, struggle against poverty and racial discrimination in their aspiration to move up in life. Within this movement Mrs Johnson is a minor but genuinely purposeful character, and her single visit is placed by Hansberry at a decisive point in the action.
Mrs Johnson is a neighbour of the Youngers on the South Side of Chicago, sharing the cramped tenement conditions in which they live and even competing with them for the use of the common bathroom. On the surface she calls out of neighbourliness, exchanging pleasantries and accepting the pie and coffee she is offered even as she protests that she has stayed too long. This gives the scene a touch of humour, but beneath the friendliness her purpose is to unsettle.
She arrives just as the family is packing to move to the white neighbourhood of Clybourne Park, and she brings a magazine whose banner headline announces that Negroes who "invaded" a white area have been bombed out of their home. She teases the Youngers for wanting to "move on up a little higher" when, in her view, they ought to know their place, as she says she knows hers. Her manner mixes envy with a grudging admiration of the family's determination to better themselves. Her recollection of the bombing dramatises the real threat of racial violence awaiting the family and heightens the suspense surrounding the move.
Her relevance to the plot is therefore several-fold. She raises fresh doubt in the Youngers about the wisdom of moving to Clybourne Park, and the events that follow, Walter's loss of the remaining insurance money to Willy Harris and the arrival of Mr Karl Lindner to buy the family out of their contract, deepen that pressure. Beneatha's verdict captures the family's response: "If there are two things we as a people have got to overcome, one is the Ku Klux Klan and the other is Mrs Johnson." In refusing to be discouraged by her, the Youngers reveal their pride and courage.
Above all, Mrs Johnson is thematically significant. She represents those coloured people who will do nothing to improve their own condition and who discourage others from trying. Standing as a foil to the Youngers' aspiration and self-respect, she illustrates the negative, defeated side of the African American struggle to break the barriers of class and race, and so throws the family's dignity and determination into sharper relief.
6. Walter's expectations in the play
Walter Lee Younger, Mama's son, Ruth's husband and Travis's father, is a lean and ambitious young man whose expectations drive much of the play's action. He is not yet the head of the house and resents it; he dislikes earning his living by driving for another man, and he is quick to blame others for his own failings.
Walter is deeply unhappy with the family's poverty and cramped conditions, a frustration that drives him to drink. His central expectation fastens on the ten-thousand-dollar insurance cheque arriving after his father's death, in which he sees the long-awaited breakthrough. He longs to be a successful businessman and provider who commands respect, and he wants the best for his son Travis, so much so that he is shocked when the boy's own modest ambition is simply to become a bus driver like his father's employer.
His chosen route to success is a liquor store, which he plans to open with his friends. He presses the scheme despite the firm opposition of his mother and sister, certain it will make the family rich and prove his manhood. When Mama entrusts part of the money to him, he stakes everything on the venture, only for his friend Willy Harris to abscond with the funds. Feeling disappointed and betrayed, he cries out of Willy, "Man, I trust you... man, I put my life in your hands... that money is made out of my father's flesh."
Walter's expectations also express themselves in his admiration of success in others. He regards George Murchison's wealthy family as having achieved everything he aspires to, and he is disappointed when Beneatha turns from George toward the African student Asagai. Yet by the play's end Walter's expectations mature. Faced with Mr Lindner's offer to buy the family out of their new home, he at first considers accepting the money, but finally rises to his true dignity and refuses, insisting that the family will move into the house his father's money bought. His expectations shift from riches to self-respect, and he reconciles with the family's determination to relocate to Clybourne Park, which for them signifies the real success. In this growth from a frustrated dreamer into a man of principle, Walter's expectations become the very engine of the play's plot and its affirmation of dignity.
