A Raisin in the Sun is a play about an African-American family in the 1950’s. The woman of the house, Mama, receives an insurance check in the mail for $10,000 since her husband has recently passed away. This check however affects each person in the family differently. While Mama just wants the best for her family Beneatha, her daughter, wants to use some of the money to fulfill her dream of attending Medical School. Beneatha’s dream however is not stable and she has problems with commitment. Her actions are emphasized more when watching the play than reading it and this puts a twist on her character’s personality. It is clear she isn’t as passionate about her dream in comparison to other characters and is constantly debating whether or not she wants to follow through with the dream she is aiming for.
Immediately in the first scene of A Raisin in the Sun you start to see what this insurance check means to each of the characters. But, you also start to get a sense, or what seems to be, of the character’s personality. Beneatha seems very selfless in the beginning when she says, “That money belongs to Mama, Walter, and it’s for her to decide how she wants to use it…” (1591) When reading the play I had more empathy toward Beneatha than Walter because she seems to be a Mama’s girl and is very innocent whereas Walter seems so selfish with his dream of owning a liquor store. However, the 1961 movie version of the play shifted my views of these two characters. I felt the complete opposite of my original opinion Walter now seems selfless and Beneatha seems to be the selfish one! Watching the play helped emphasis Beneatha’s comments regarding certain points. Yet, when I read the acts I had more sympathy toward Beneatha and actually felt bad that her brother wanted the money to open the liquor store.
In addition to the characters personality difference in the play compared to the book Beneatha is quite indecisive when it comes to commitment. Once she mentions she’s going to her guitar lessons Mama says to her, “Lord, child, don’t you know what to do with yourself? How long it going to be before you get tired of this now?” Mama and Ruth refer back to when she joined the horseback-riding club and play-acting group which upsets Beneatha. She goes on to say, “I don’t flit! I- I experiment with different forms of expression…” which helps emphasis her character’s personality. (1596) Yet, if she gets tired of every club or group she has ever joined, how do we know she won’t get tired of wanting to become a doctor and bail out of school or change her major? At first this question is not clear, yet later in the play we find out she drops her dream immediately when Walter loses the money! When Mama gives Walter the money to invest safely his intentions are to gain interest so he can get more money toward his dream of opening the liquor store. Unfortunately, since he was so selfish and didn’t invest the money correctly because he was so caught up in his dream, this affects everyone else’s dream as well. They’re on the verge of not being able to afford the new house; now Beneatha doesn’t have any money toward Medical school, and there’s absolutely no way Walter can open a liquor store.
After the epiphany of Walter losing Mama’s money Beneatha has a conversation with Asagai which shows us how she’s currently feeling about her dream. Even though we think she is so passionate about being a doctor as soon as she knows she no longer has any money coming her way towards Medical School she abandons her dream. But, in the movie while Asagai is talking to Beneatha he tells her that everyone in her family was getting their hopes up for something that may have never come. He means each character, for the most part, set up a goal or dream which mostly relates to the insurance check. Nevertheless, there was no guarantee that money would come and the only reason it did end up coming was because Mr. Younger passed away. This means, each character should have created a dream that was realistic with or without that big chunk of money! It seems to be the only person with a realistic dream is Ruth because she simply just wants to move out of the miserable house they live in! She offered to work more and do absolutely anything she could to raise the money while the other dreams required a lot of savings, especially in their time period!
In the written version of this play Beneatha’s reaction to losing this money isn’t as exaggerated with attitude as it was in the play. She tells Asagai, “No – I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care… (1634) However, in the movie she instantly says something like, “Well I didn’t want to be a doctor anyway.” Just as earlier Beneatha is quick to drop her “dream” once she hears the devastating news. She doesn’t think optimistically and has no interest in trying to raise the money herself. She was primarily relying on her father’s insurance money and acts like a brat when it was gone. Yet, once Asagai talks to her about possibly getting married and moving to Africa with him she quickly changes her mind. She tells her mom, “To go to Africa, Mama – be a doctor in Africa.” (1643) All of a sudden her dream of being a doctor was relieved and she gains hope in this career path since she was inspired by Asagai.
In conclusion, my sympathy toward Beneatha in the play decreased compared to what it was while reading the written version. She seems much more selfish in the movie version and is constantly debating whether or not she wants to follow through with the dream she is aiming for. She is very wishy-washy about not only her dream but, other activities she’s involved with. As soon as her family loses her father’s insurances money she instantly gives up her dream of becoming a doctor. Walter’s selfish reasons of investing the money to make a profit for his liquor store hindered not only Beneatha’s dream but, other characters as well. Even though Beneatha says she doesn’t want to become a doctor anymore once Asagai offers to marry her and move to Africa she immediately falls back on her dream!
Reflection: 
For our second long assignment we had several different options to choose from. I chose option number two which was: Choose one character and look at the evolution of that character's dream. Is their dream realized? How is their dream affected by the dreams of the other characters in the play? I decided I wanted this paper to be on my e-portfolio because I really struggled with the first long paper and I wasn’t able to write it to the best of my ability. However, with this assignment I knew exactly how Beneatha’s dream had been affected and what I wanted to write about. At first I was going to compare the movie version with the written play but, I knew I would lose my thought process and my paper would become disorganized.