Beneatha's_Struggles

In the play, A Raisin in the Sun Beneatha Younger suffers many struggles in order to obtain her dreams. Beneatha is a attractive twenty year old girl and who knows what she wants to have a career in and that’s being a doctor. In order to become a doctor she has to go to school for but doesn’t have the money. Beneatha is very ambitious and independent; however, she has trouble finding a hobby. She has gone through many hobbies such as photography, guitar, and many others but she can’t find what is right for her. Her Mama has collected a life insurance check from the death of her husband who is also Beneatha’s father and although she didn’t ask for some of the money for school Mama insists to give her the money because it’s her choice what to do with the money. Beneatha also has two men in her life one named George Murchison who is “too shallow” as Beneatha says but, he is very rich, and Joseph Asagai who is a native African who is very sweet to Beneatha and buys her gifts and such. Beneatha likes Asagai more, but Ruth, Mama, and Walter all want Beneatha to choose George to get marry and settle down with so that she will get his money but she thinks it is not always about the money. Most of Beneatha’s struggles are much different than the definition of struggle that you think of when you hear the word. Beneatha’s struggle is more of a mental struggle due to the fact that she cannot decide on what she likes and who she is. Plus Asagai always talks to her about “assimilational negroes” and he says that they are disappointing to him so she also has that on her mind when she thinks about her “identity”. Beneatha always thought that fitting in was a good thing to try to do, until Asagai explains to her about the assimilation of negroes back in that time period. Beneatha also struggles with her family because she doesn’t really fit in at her household due to her different beliefs in religion and her attitude towards her brother Walter Lee Younger because of what he did with the insurance check money that was suppose to go towards her tuition. When Beneatha said that there is nothing left in Walter to love Mama said this, “There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” This quote shows how Mama thinks that even though Walter has made some really stupid mistakes, she should still respect the fact that he is trying to make everything better for the family. Beneatha’s struggles also pertained to every other African American woman at this time of racial discrimination. Not only did Beneatha set her goals extremely high but for her to become a doctor at this time while being a woman and a person of color was almost unheard of. However, she was willing to do whatever it takes to get the money, go to medical school, and become a doctor even if it meant working three different jobs. Her brother Walter always put her dreams down too which I thought was pretty ironic because of the fact that him and Ruth got in a huge argument over how Ruth puts down his dreams. Walter would always tell Beneatha that women don’t become doctors, they become nurses, but she refused to listen to his negative comments. After this play is over you could only imagine the struggle she has to make all the money back for college if she still wants to be a doctor because Walter gave to an untrustworthy man named Willy Harris who took the six thousand and five hundred dollars and ran off. At the end of the play Joseph Asagai also asks Beneatha to marry him and move to African which would indefinitely get in the way of her dreams but she says it is something that she would love to do.