First of all, I would like to start my work with a brief analysis of the play's plot structure. The exposition of the tragedy is quite clear when the Young's family is in their living room and is going to receive the life insurance check because of the death of Lena's (Mama) husband. Then the complications develop quite dynamically. The family receives the check and decides what they have to do with the money. Then they pay for the new house and Mama gives the rest to her son Walter Lee who, in his turn gives the money to Willy Harris and loses it because the latter disappears. The climax of the play is, in my opinion, the episode when Walter Lee refuses to take money from Mr. Lindner who wanted the Young family not to move in the new house because he as well as the local community didn't want to have colored neighbors. This refusal is a symbol of Walter's transformation from an ordinary person who likes adventures into a mature man with a strong sense of self-respect and dignity and "he finally came into his manhood …Kind of like a rainbow after the rain" (Hansberry, Act 3, p.141). And, finally, the climax is followed by the denouement that is quite obvious and the reader can easily guess that the Young family is happy and they leave their old living room, a symbol of their old life, in expectations for better new life in the new house.
As for the themes, I think they are revealed through the main characters of the play and the family is in the focus of the author's attention and it seems to be the dominant theme. The main role in keeping traditions is given to the Mama whose only aim is "to preserve the unity and the well being of the family"(Dedmond, p. 163) and naturally it is more important for her than money which she easily gives to Walter: "and from now on any penny that come out of it or that go in it is for you to look after. For you to decide. It ain't too much, but it's all I got in the world and I'm putting it in your hands. I'm telling you to be head of this family from now on like you supposed to be" (Hansberry, Act 2, p.94). Probably, it is the conversation with Mama that makes Walter change his mind and refuse from money that Lindner gave to him. She also tries to smooth relations within the family, particularly between Walter and his wife, who being pregnant wants to abort the fetus, as well as between Walter and his sister Beneatha, whose desire to study he doesn't understand. Another important theme is money and it is Walter who is the main character that was almost ready "to sell his soul and his pride for money"(Dedmond, p. 165). I think exactly in this episode through the personal tragedy of moral degradation of the main character the author reveals the whole tragedy of the play. Finally, the last theme I can't fail to mention is the problem of racism which is revealed through the relations and attitude of white and colored people, namely Lindner and the Young family, as well as Beneatha and one of her gentlemen callers George Murchison. As for the former "the Younger family sees the differences in race and group him with snobbish white people" (Dedmond, p. 166).
Thus, we can see that in the play of L. Hansberry, one of the main characters finally achieves a sort of wisdom, he realizes that there is nothing more important than the family and in such a way the author tries to convey an optimistic message to the reader and makes all of us hope that even one loses all the money he or she can find help and consolation in his or her family and it certainly makes us very sympathetic with such a tragic character as Walter Lee.
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