How Long Do You Hold On To Your Dreams?

As soon as we are able to talk and understand the world understand, we start conjuring dreams for ourselves. They begin as being a firefighter, knight, or princess. They give us a chance to thrive in our own little parallel universes hidden in our imagination. Throughout our lifetime, as we get older and wiser, our dreams change with us until they define they pinnacle of our success.
Similarly, in A Raisin in the Sun, each member of the family has their indivdual dreams.
Some have been in existence for nearly a lifetime like Mama's, and some are fresh and new and full of hope like Travis's. Yet each person's dreams shapes his/her character and creates a purpose in their life.

For example, Mama dreamt of buying" a little place in Morgan park. (She) had even picked out the house... all the dreams (she) had 'bout buying that house and fixing it up and making (her) a little garden in the back" (Hansberry 44-45).
This was her American Dream. Ever since she was married, all she wanted was place to call home with a little garden and a place for the kids to play. But like many who dream, Mama was thwarted in her route to reach her dreams by the plethora of hardships she came across. Even so, when she got the check, her first thought was to purchase a house like she had always wanted, so her family could live proudly in a house they owned. Despite being so old, her dream was not just for her but for her entire family. And at the end, she was successful in doing so.

I can relate to this because my parents are both immigrants from India so time and time again I hear of how they had to leave their families and follow their dreams of moving to America. Of course, they met with many financial and work-related hardships, yet they were able to create the lifestyle they had always dreamt of for themselves and my brother and I.

Our dreams and aspirations are the things that are rightfully are own and can be as crazy and far-fetched as we like. We can hide them deep in the burrows of our imagination or chase after them.

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to purse them"
- Walt Disney

Lash Equality

"Man says to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs" (Hansberry 33). 

"Doctor say everything going to be all right?/ Yes... / 'She'- What doctor you went to" (Hansberry 39). 

A Raisin in the Sun  hits on many social issues of 1950s Chicago, one being sexism.
 
Walter is upset with Ruth as he feels that she never supports him since she's a colored woman who doesn't know the ways of the world. Despite being her husband, he chastises her for only being fit to cook while he draws out his dreams. This emphasizes the stereotype that men go to work and meet their dreams while woman stay home to support and feed their family.

To continue, when Ruth finds out she's pregnant and Mama inquires what the doctor said, Mama is shocked to find out that the doctor is a female. Despite being a female herself, Mama automatically jumps to the conclusion that doctor must not be qualified or know what she's talking about. This once again supports the stereotype that women are not as capable as men and can't fit the occupations of doctors and lawyers.

Although we are in the 21 century, these sexist stereotypes still do exist. Yet, there are some who are breaking the gender barrier and creating new limits for themselves. One example is James Charles who recently became the first ever male Covergirl model. He is working with Katy Perry on the first universal mascara SoLashy to promote Lash Equality.  He said, "I think having a male ambassador really takes it one step further and just expresses inclusivity for all. Makeup is kind of becoming a more genderless concept, which is so cool and something that I’m all for," in an article for ABC news. 

For decades, women have been fighting for equality, but it is truly so inspirational seeing the male do the same. 

The Great Gatsby  laid out events in the 1920s, highlighting the vices in society. Racism, alcoholic, adultery, and many such societal problems were brought forth through the pretentious lifestyles of the characters in the book.
Each character was beautifully described in their social standing, acts, and characteristics; however, the most unique description was that of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg and the Valley of ashes.

"About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground" (Fitzgerald 26). 

Though the valley of Ashes is just another location with less wealthy inhabitants, it's described with the motif of the color gray. This makes the place look solemn and burnt from all they adultery and corruption that has been going on. In contrast to the starkness, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg is described in brighter colors like yellow and blue to show the god-like nature of him as he watched over the valley. Also it's ironic that although he's an oculist, he's fallen into eternal blindness, yet he watches over everything. 

I thought this description was very unique from the rest as it exemplified how geography divided social statuses.