Dignity and the American Dream in A Raisin in the Sun The American Dream, while different for each of us, is what we all aspire to achieve. In Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, each member of the Younger family hopes desperately for their chance to achieve the American dream. The American dream for the Younger family is to own a home, but beyond that, for Walter Younger, it is to be accepted by white society. In the book titled "Advertising the American Dream," Roland Marchand refers to the American Dream as the belief that "if you work hard and play by the rules, you will achieve your goals" (March 1). In the play, Walter Lee Younger does none of these things. Walter doesn't show up for work regularly and certainly has no intention of complying with the rules for obtaining a business license. Walter Lee is a man stuck in a dead-end job that he finds humiliating and from which he desperately tries to free himself. the constraints of poverty, oppression and racial discrimination. Walter Lee feels that with money he can change the hegemony's view of him as a poor, stupid black servant. The hegemony's social construction of reality of blacks as inferior, and the hegemony's ethnocentric perception of being superior, is corroborated in an article titled "The Color Bar of Beauty" by The Peak. Cristina Rodrigues, a member of the black cultural and social activist group Olodum, states: "In Brazil no one wants to be black because the mass media equates black with poor and stupid" (Aujla 2). Walter has a loving relationship with his family, but he also has a relationship that frustrates him. Walter's family frustrations are caused by society's lack of...half of paper......y." The Peak. May 4, 1998: 1-5. Available: http://www.peak.sfu. ca/the-peak/98-2/issue1/colorbar.htmlHansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun New York: Signet, 1988.Johnson, Lyndon B. “The American Promise of the Presidents of the United States.” Johnson, vol. 1 (1965), 281. 1-9. Available: http://www.civnet.org/resoures/teach/basic/par6/40.htmMarchand, Roland Advertising the American Dream. University of California Press, 1985Margolin, Michael. "Reasons in the Sun." p20-509u.pdU.S Available: http://law.cornell.edu/supct/html/97-156.ZS.html