A Raisin in the Sun, Emerald City: Third and Pike: Dreams
Uploaded by AlPhA on Feb 21, 2002
By Gregory Peker and Michael Stoller
Dreams can be seen in many ways. A dream could be something you had in the night that seems so real, or a dream could be your fantasy, where everything is going your way. The last type of dream is something that has more of a deep sense and plays an important role in your life. In life, people have many dreams. Dreams are important because they create goals for people, and they motivate people to accomplish them. Without a dream, a person will be unfocused in life and will most likely not be successful. In the play A Raisin in the Sun and the short story “Emerald City: Third and Pike,” the main characters both have dreams that they strive for.
In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Walter Lee Younger has a dream. His dream is to be a successful businessman and for his family to be very happy. He wanted his wife to have a Cadillac and for his son to go to any college he desired. His dream is admirable and what most people would like. The difficult part is how to accomplish it; he had many external conflicts between himself and his family. In particular was the person who would’ve been his largest factor for his success, his mother. Lena Younger (Walter Lee’s mother) received ten-thousand dollars from a life insurance policy on Walter Lee’s father. Lena Younger then gave Walter Lee sixty-five hundred dollars and spent the rest on a down payment on a house. Walter Lee then gambled away the sixty-five hundred dollars on a liquor store and lost it all. The person which he and a business partner entrusted with the money ran away and took all the money with him.
Another character who has a dream is Oya from “Emerald City: Third and Pike.” Her dream is to become an astronaut, but was always being criticized by her previous employer. One night, she nearly murdered her employer, which caused her to go to prison and her to be what she is now, a person living on the streets. In “Emerald City: Third and Pike,” Oya tells her story to that person because she thinks she might be able to help someone reinforce their dreams and hopefully not to stop trying to succeed. She was also trying to tell that person more about herself now and...