Other Things Worthy of Your Time
The Vulnerability of Confidence
5/30/04
A Raisin in the Sun is a story saturated in adversity. From the hard luck of Walter losing his family’s money to the simple fact that the Youngers were a black family in an essentially segregated nation, the plot was ever intertwined with despair. Through it all though, the family proved resilient, and laid the pathway to better days. They did it with a mixture of hope, hard work, and just plain independent will—an urge to escape the shackles of circumstance. One character in particular expressed these things essential to ever realizing the right to be happy, but, in doing so, immersed herself in ideals that would only lead to disappointment. Strangely enough, this disappointment would itself lead to realizing the faults of blindly following whatever cause she’d acquire a taste for. She’d find that experience can greatly affect one’s perception, and that incidence can happen to anyone.
“BENEATHA. Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t accept. It’s not important. I am not going out and be immoral or commit crimes because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no God—there is only man it is he who makes miracles” (Hansberry 334).
Beneatha Younger is a character with evident self-concept. She questions divinity—an act at the summit of human arrogance—and portrays a confident level of pride in people, whether based on herself, or the entire human race in general. “God hasn’t got a thing to do with it. [God isn’t necessary],” she says about her future (334). She speaks like a person who truly believes in her own potential.
As a woman—as an African American woman—in mid-20th Century America, Beneatha’s mere livelihood was certain to be a struggle if she chose to step outside the limitations and obscurity assigned to people of that particular mold. The fact she not only wanted to rise above the apparent injustice offered for her to accept but actually sought a life potentially at the top of anybody’s standards meant she had a truly noble ambition and idea of success.
“Beneatha. You didn’t tell me what Alaiyo means…for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something…”
Asagai. It means…it means One for Whom Bread—Food—Is Not Enough. Is that alright?” (p. 340-341).
Even through the quest to make her own place in the world, Beneatha still found herself caught up in the natural feelings between a man and a woman, and, when her world fell out from under her, it might have played a large role in saving whatever part of her motivation remained.
“BENEATHA. Don’t you see there isn’t any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture—in front of us—our own little mirage that we think is the future.”
ASAGAI. That is the mistake. … It isn’t a circle—it is simply a long line—as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end, we cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd, but those who see the changes are called “idealists”—and those who cannot, or refuse to think, they are the “realists.” It is very strange, and amusing too, I think.”
BENEATHA. You—you are almost religious.”
ASAGAI. Yes…I think I have the religion of doing what is necessary in the world—and of worshipping man—because he is so marvelous, you see.”
BENEATHA. Man is foul! And the human race deserves its misery!”
ASAGAI. You see: you have become the religious one in the old sense. Already, and after such a small defeat, you are worshipping despair.”
BENEATHA. From now on, I worship the truth—and the truth is that people are puny, small, and selfish…” (p. 374).
Beneatha lost faith, not only in an Almighty entity as she eluded to, but also in the only thing she still believed in: herself. The effect wasn’t completely negative however. By losing confidence in her own ability, she became dependent, and dependent on the people she’d given up on. The irony of it all was that Beneatha realized the necessity of support from the people that had failed her because they failed her.
“ASAGAI. Your brother made a stupid, childish mistake—and you are grateful to him. So that now you can give up the ailing human race on account of it” (p. 375).
Asagai, more than any other character, is her anchor. There’s no sense of obligation to regard him, unlike Lena—a mother, or Charles—a dollar figure of a man who’d continually reinforce any obligation there would be to him. Asagai keeps Beneatha realistic, and safe. He’s also her escape from the cruelty of the rest of the world, and makes tragic life worth living. The misfortune would only test his purpose, authenticate it, then strengthen the faith in something—in someone—that Beneatha desperately needed to find again.
“ASAGAI. Three hundred years later the African Prince rose up our of the seas and swept the maiden back across the middle passage over which her ancestors had come” (p. 376).
She’s to leave, bound for love, and life, somewhere in Africa. That’s that though, and her story, and one that probably turns out in the end, no matter how bad things might have seemed at times.
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
Like a syrupy sweet?”
—Langston Hughes.
What happens to a dream deferred for most of us? It withers up and blows away, making way for a new one. And slowly but surely, dream after dream that’s come and gone, life becomes just one big, hopeless fantasy.
People need a certain comfort level in their daily lives to withstand any workload from pursuing a goal. After finding this comfort, sometimes the goal doesn’t seem as important. If you’re living life anyway, without yet realizing the fruit of your aims, there’s the assumption that there will still be life even without accomplishment. Sooner or later though, you realize you have to face the equivalent of things you might have been preparing for. A shame that it comes in the form of negative tragedy instead of productive adversity.
It takes wealth to live life. It takes a wealth of talent, and integrity, and just plain luck to follow plans and live out dreams. It takes money. Where is man without resource? What can man create without raw materials? There are plenty of failures and missed opportunities, excuses and realized mistakes, but fortune and blessing ends up being the governor of success in the world. Morals and ambition mean little. Ideas unrealized mean nothing. Dreams remain simple substitutions for already false happiness. What is an unsuccessful life worth anyway? Is there life without success?
It’s strange how we can find ourselves atop the world when we still have such a long way left to climb; we get so used to a life deprived of problems or hardship, and believe it’s the only way it could possibly be. We find ourselves caught up in the greatness of the moment and lose sight of the true greatness we were working towards. Worst of all, in this state of mind, we leave ourselves so much more vulnerable when it’s time to face adversity, when it’s time to fall.
“Beneatha. …I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know—and make them whole again. This was truly being God…”
Asagai. You wanted to be God?”
Beneatha. No—I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. … It used to matter. I used to care.”
Asagai. And you’ve stopped caring?”
Beneatha. Yes—I think so” (p.373-374).
That’s the fault of independent reasoning and true self-reliance, and the type of things the character of Beneatha herself portrayed—neglecting support, deserting aid, leaving herself vulnerable with no one to catch her. Maybe the prospect of relying on others does mean you’re at the mercy of someone else’s incompetence, but isn’t everyone incompetent on their own by design? Ever dependent on the lyrics of song: “Everybody needs somebody sometime…”
Works Cited