Marxist Reading of A Raisin in the Sun

 

Class, Capital and Consciousness: A Marxist Reading of A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), set against the backdrop of mid-20th century America, is not merely a domestic drama about a struggling Black family; it is an agonizing exploration of economic inequality, class conflict, and the commodification of dreams in a capitalist society. Through the experiences of the Younger family, Hansberry dramatizes the struggle between material survival and moral integrity within a racially segregated and economically marginalised society. A Marxist reading of the play reveals the deep class tensions embedded in the characters’ lives and choices, demonstrating how socio-economic forces shape individual consciousness, family dynamics, and the illusion of the American Dream.

At the heart of Marxist theory is the idea of economic determinism the belief that the material base (economic conditions) determines the ideological superstructure (beliefs, culture, law, etc.). In A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger family’s circumstances are dictated by their poverty. Their overcrowded, decaying apartment symbolizes the structural conditions imposed on the working class. As Walter laments:“I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room.”

This line echoes Karl Marx’s concept of material Conditions of economic determinism. The cramped space is not just a setting, but a material reality that shapes desires, choices, and even moral decisions. The family’s aspiration to move out is driven not by luxury, but by the basic human need for space, privacy, and dignity all denied under the logic of capitalist urban housing and racial redlining.

Marx distinguished between class consciousness, the awareness of one's social class and its struggle and false consciousness, where individuals misrecognize their real interests due to dominant ideology. Walter Lee Younger represents a tragic figure caught between these two poles. His desire to invest in a liquor store reflects a bourgeois aspiration an attempt to escape his class position by becoming a capitalist entrepreneur. However, this dream is shaped by a false consciousness, wherein he believes personal wealth will grant him dignity and freedom.

 

Marx’s concept of alienation where the worker becomes estranged from the product of their labor and from themselves is vividly portrayed in Walter’s job as a chauffeur. He expresses his alienation not just from his labor, but from his identity.

Walter is alienated from autonomy, creativity, and self-respect. His work does not fulfill him; it reduces him to a mechanical extension of someone else’s wealth. This alienation feeds his anger and desperation, making him vulnerable to risky financial schemes. Ruth, too, is alienated not just through economic dependency but through her emotional exhaustion. Her pregnancy and contemplation of abortion speak volumes about the commodification of life itself under capitalist constraints.

In a Marxist view, capitalism commodifies everything, even human dreams and relationships. The $10,000 insurance check becomes more than money; it becomes a symbol of possibility, inheritance, and moral responsibility. However, Hansberry illustrates how capitalist ideology commodifies this inheritance, transforming a legacy of hard work and sacrifice into an investment opportunity. The tension among the characters is not only about how to spend the money but what the money represents.

Walter sees the money as capital; Beneatha sees it as opportunity for education and empowerment; Lena sees it as a means to restore family unity and dignity. These differing views reflect a class-divided society where individuals assign value based on their position in the economic hierarchy.

Though A Raisin in the Sun centers on a Black family, Hansberry’s play resists being reduced to a racial problem alone. Instead, it shows how racism operates within capitalist structures. The family’s desire to move into Clybourne Park a white neighbourhood exposes how real estate and housing were key mechanisms of racial-economic exclusion.

When Mr. Lindner offers the family a financial incentive not to move into the neighborhood, his words carry the language of diplomacy but reveal the mechanisms of ideological control: “It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” This polite racism masks a brutal ideological apparatus as defined by Louis Althusser where the state and society impose values that sustain inequality, under the illusion of harmony.

One of the key turning points in the play is Walter’s transformation from a man blinded by false dreams to one who finally recognizes the moral dimension of class struggle. When he rejects Mr. Lindner’s offer, Walter declares: “We have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by brick.”

This moment marks a reawakening of class consciousness. Walter, once seduced by capital, now asserts collective pride and ancestral legacy. He reclaims his father's legacy not through profit, but through principled resistance. Hansberry offers here a glimpse of revolutionary potential not through systemic overthrow, but through moral solidarity and refusal to sell dignity for comfort.

Prominent critics and writers have acknowledged the play’s socio-economic critique. Amiri Baraka praised Hansberry for her “vision of a Black family confronting the terror of the real world.” Scholar Barbara Foley reads the play as a “subtle dramatization of Black working-class resistance to both racism and the economic system that reinforces it.”

Raymond Williams, in his Marxist approach to literature, argued that drama must address “structures of feeling” and A Raisin in the Sun exemplifies this. It captures the emotional costs of economic struggle without sacrificing political clarity.

 

Hansberry’s Style and Theatrical Realism

Hansberry’s style is grounded in dramatic realism, influenced by both Arthur Miller and Henrik Ibsen, yet enriched by a specifically African-American cultural and historical consciousness. Her use of vernacular speech, intimate domestic scenes, and symbolic motifs (such as Mama’s plant) roots the drama in both realism and allegorical significance. The plant, barely surviving on the windowsill, becomes a metaphor for Black resilience under hostile economic and social conditions.

Her language is controlled yet lyrical. She writes with a keen ear for dialogue that reveals ideology, not merely personality. Every argument in the play is not only a familial dispute, but a dialectical clash of values—materialism vs. morality, assimilation vs. identity, profit vs. pride.