A Letter To Walter

For our final unit in Drama, we studied the concept of a matriarch within Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun.” The play’s relevance to Chicago is that, to this day, Chicago is still very much segregated in its communities. The play shows how racism affected families who chose to move in primarily white neighborhoods and how communities would work to keep black families out. Often this resulted in neighbors paying families not to move in or burning houses of black families. Our action project was centered around writing a letter to Walter as one of the characters trying to convince him to either sell or not sell the house to Mr. Lindner. I chose to write a letter as Walter’s sister, Beneatha Younger, telling him not to sell the house. Throughout the book, the Youngers face problems surrounding pride, making sacrifices, and having dreams and hope. Beneatha was one of the characters who had to sacrifice her dreams for her family, going to medical school, and becoming a doctor.

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun.