Reading Reflection: The Effects of Housing Inequality on Dreams in Urban Mid-Century America in Lorr
As I was re-reading Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, I was reminded of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “kitchenette building” which is explores similar themes of housing and dreams. Though the apartment in A Raisin in the Sun is not, strictly speaking, a kitchenette building, it has similar structural similarities such its small size and layout. Both Brooks and Hansberry highlight the fact that the bathroom is outside of the actual apartment and is shared with the neighbors. They are also similar in that the type of apartment described in A Raisin in the Sun and kitchenette buildings, which often housed extra-nuclear families, were a prevalent housing option in poor/low-class, urban, black neighborhoods in the 1950s. Both the residents of the kitchenette building in Brooks’ poem and the Younger family in Hansberry’s play face a similar socio-economic situation which prevents their ability to cultivate their dreams.
In “kitchenette building,” the narrator describes his/her experience as a resident of a kitchenette building. Brooks writes:
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,/Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong/Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”//But could a dream sent up through onion fumes/Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes/And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall,/Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,//Even if we were willing to let it in,/Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,/Anticipate a message, let it begin?//We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!/Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,/We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
The narrator tells us that that the people of kitchenette buildings are “things of dry hours” (line 1). This suggests, firstly, that as “things,” these residents are somehow less than fully human. Secondly, the words “dry hours” offers the reader the image of an arid environment, hostile to the growth and flourishing of living things. The narrator goes on to describe the word “Dream” as having a “giddy sound” whereas words like “rent,” feeding a wife,” and “satisfying a man” are words with “strong” sounds (lines 2-3). The voice of a “Dream” is mutable, unreliable, and transient. The sounds of “rent,” “feeding a wife,” and “satisfying a man,” conversely, are immutable, reliable, and everlasting. The voices of our basic needs, shelter, food, and sex, are louder, stronger than the voice of a dream. To satisfy these basic needs is necessary to keep one alive, but to satisfy them does not necessarily guarantee that one is really living. Perhaps this is why the narrator describes the residents of kitchenette buildings as “Grayed in, and gray” “things.” This reminds me of the opening scene in A Raisin in the Sun in which Walter tells Ruth,
That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of the world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby! And his woman say—Your eggs is getting cold! (1277).
Both A Raisin in the Sun and “kitchenette building” highlight the tension between one’s dreams versus one’s reality.
Throughout Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Mama is seen nurturing a small houseplant. When speaking with Ruth, Mama remembers the days early into her marriage when she and her husband would dream of owning their own home. Mama explains, “Looks right dumpy today. But Lord, child, you should know all the dreams I had 'bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back. And didn't none of it happen” (1281). Though Mama’s dream of owning her own home with a garden remained elusive throughout the majority of her life due to the realities of her situation as an African American woman during the first half of the 20th century, she continues to nurture dream for a better tomorrow which is embodied by her love and care for her plant. Mama recognizes that, like the plant, dreams need to be cared for in order to stay alive. In this way, Mama’s houseplant serves as a metaphorical gauge of the vitality of her dreams for her children and for herself and of her hope for a future in which she and her family will finally spread their roots into solid ground.
This correlates with the second stanza of “kitchenette building” in which the narrator considers whether or not the voice of a dream can fight with the sounds of our basic needs and the kitchenette building environment. Can the voice of a dream overcome the things of everyday life like “fried potatoes/And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall?” (lines 5-6). In the midst of all these other “stronger” sounds, can dreams “sing an aria down these rooms”? (line 7). Can it “flutter” its wings (line 7)? Like Mama’s plant in A Raisin in the Sun, the dream in “kitchenette building” needs to be cared if it is to survive. In the third stanza, the residents of the kitchenette building are not “willing to let [the dream] in” because they do not have “[have] time to warm it, keep it clean” “to let it begin” (lines 8-10). In this way, the narrator of this poem reminds me of Ruth who, as the most pragmatic characters in A Raisin in the Sun, is entirely concerned with the difficult realities of day to day living. In the fourth stanza, the narrator’s reflection on the nature of dreams in the kitchenette building is interrupted when “Number Five is out of the bathroom” (line 12). In the kitchenette building, it seems, what one “hope[s] for is “lukewarm water” not fulfilling one’s dreams (line 13). Works Cited
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "kitchenette building." The Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, 1963. Web. 26 Mar. 2013.
Hansberry, Lorraine. "A Raisin in the Sun." The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Fourth ed. N.p.: Bedford St. Martins, n.d. 1274-1310. Print.