Walter Analysis

Walter Analysis

The title of the poem is “A Raisin in the Sun”. It comes from a line in a poem by Langston Hughes, a prominent African-American poet. Hughes asks a question, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”. When a dream is postponed for the future, does it shrink and become irrelevant? Walter’s dream is to open up a chain of liquor stores, to better the life of his family. When Ruth shuts him down, and Mama denies him the money, his dream gets shelved in favor of a new home in a white neighborhood. Walter’s dream was deferred, and in Walter’s eyes, his dreams are starting are change.