Raisin Blog 4

A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry


One moment I found particularly shocking while reading A Raisin in the Sun, was the moment where I discovered that Ruth was considering the option of aborting her child. I can understand why aborting her child may have seen like a financially responsible decsion. However, if money had not been so important to the Younger family, then Ruth would have understood how wrong of a decision it was to consider abortion. Before I found out that Ruth was considering this though, I found out something interesting about Mama. "...And then, Lord, when I lost that baby- little Claude- I almost thought I was going to lose Big Walter too..."(Hansberry, 452). I knew that this fact would come into play later on in the story, I just did not know that it would be involving one of Mama's own children. The reason that Mama felt so strongly about Ruth considering voluntarily giving up her baby was Mama involuntarily had to give up one of her own children. Mama wanted Walter to try to convince Ruth to keep the child because Mama did not want Ruth to make a mistake that she would regret. The fact that Walter was making very little effort in trying to change Ruth's mind made Mama quite angry. My guess is that Mama envied Ruth's ability to choose in the regard of whether to have a baby or not.