Lorraine Hansberry used a line from Langston Hughes poem, Harlem, as the title of her play. Considering that which you have read so far (Act 1), why do you think she did that?

  A sad fact of life is that people's dreams contradict each other. Not everyone can achieve their dreams because individuals and resources do not have the means to achieve these dreams. For example, if Martha and Stewart want to be the top psychologist in the world from 2030 to 2040 consecutively, then only one of them can be if it isn't someone else entirely. This is an example of a dream that individuals cause to contradict. Now, let's look at Amanda, who's dream is to buy a Lamborghini. This is a dream that multiple people can achieve, so individuals don't cause it to contradict. However, Amanda is a lower class American citizen with no money saved up in the bank and bad credit. Amanda needs good credit and a lot of money to buy a Lamborghini. Amanda doesn't have the money or the credit, so the resources causes her dream to contradict reality. For Martha and Stewart, the reality is they can become the top psychologist, but not both of them. For Amanda, the reality is she can purchase a Lamborghini, but she isn't able to because she doesn't have the resources to buy it.

    In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the characters dreams contradict each other, and where there are not dreams that contradict each other, there are hopes. This is seen in Walter and Beneatha's contradicting dreams- they both need Mama's money, but for different purposes. Beneatha cannot pursue her dream, to be a doctor, without Mama's money to provide her with the necessary education. Walter cannot pursue his dream, to be a successful black man, without being a monetarily successful black man, and, in his perception, the best chance he has at that is by investing in the purchase of a series of liquor stores. Walter can only achieve this through Mama's money. There is one resource, and conflicting dreams. Mama wants her children, Beneatha and Walter, to be happy, but she hopes that the means in which they pursue their happiness are not the ones they dream of. Each of them express their desperation to achieve their dream differently- Beneatha's festers like a sore, Mama's sags like a heavy load, and Walter's has become crispy sugar. Considering that this is Act 1, I expect that the other protagonists will have a different way of dealing with dead dreams, each one having been mentioned in Langston Hughes's poem. I think the purpose of having each protagonist have a different way of dealing with dreams is to see if they all end the same- explosion.