Generation Gap in Raison in the Sun

A Generation Gap in a Raisin in the Sun

There is a big generation gap in the book A Raisin in the Sun. There are three different generations all living in the same old cramped apartment. The family has been living in the apartment for at least forty years and has never been able to own their home.

With this generation gap there is quite a lot of arguments and complaining. Walter and Ruth get into conflicts all of the time, and then there is Walter and Mama with their struggle for the money. These are just some of the conflicts in this story. The generation gap poses problems between Mama, Walter, and Beneatha.

Mama has stuck to her same values ever since she was a child. She is the oldest women in the apartment, and is the wisest. She controls the household at the beginning of the play but then hands her control down to Walter by giving him the rest of the insurance money. Mama is stuck to the values of blacks from when they were slaves back in the last 1800’s. She is a woman who will never change those values, because she grew up with those values. She is a catholic woman with strict values in the household. It seems that when she was born, she may have been born a slave or the slaves were getting emancipated around that time. This upbringing causes her to have a very strict attitude in the play. When Beneatha says “there is no god” mama slapped beneatha and made her say "In my mother's house there is still God." This shows Mama’s control on her kids and the household.

Walter is a grown man around the age of thirty-five and has been living in the apartment all of his life. He is a man that changes throughout the entire play and has big dreams for his near future. He is the first child of the family, and he thinks he should be treated as the oldest with some responsibility from his mama. Walter is a person who doesn’t live in the past, and cares about money. With this care about money, he wants to invest in a liquor store. He thinks that with this investment the family would be rich overnight. He thinks that he will have his own office at work, and have his own gardener at home. His mama still sticks to her old values and told Walter right away that he could not invest into the liquor store. This makes Walter very upset and mama and Walter get into a huge argument