In Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, a number of social issues are both explicitly and subtly exemplified through the experiences and relationships of the personages. Living in a cramped Chicago apartment, the Youngers display both influential goals and conflicting restrictions. Beneatha Youngers is a controversial character; complicates society's typical gender roles, introduces the struggle between assimilation and ancestry of African Americans, but specifically serves as a paradigm for his generation in the play. When Beneatha is first introduced in the play, we see her wake up on a normal morning. ; he lives in the same limited circumstances as the rest of the characters. Before Beneatha's entrance, the audience observes Walter and Ruth at breakfast. Walter begins to complain about "colored women" throughout the play, his character continually spouting patriarchal and misogynistic comments, often aimed at Beneatha. As he finishes his negative complaints, Beneatha enters. The character's long description shapes his personality. She is not illustrated as pretty but her “almost intellectual face has a beauty all its own” (Hansberry, 35). This specific use of beautiful portrays her character as edgy and unfeminine. Hansberry's choice of words is extremely intentional as it connects Beneatha with masculine qualities, which intrinsically match the stereotype of her feminist personality. The fact that his face is also described as intellectual implies that he has an intelligent look to his features. “His speech is a mixture of many things; is different from the rest of the family insofar as education has permeated her sense of English - and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has the final list... middle of the paper..., but she grows up to adapt idealistic thinking. His presence in the show was symbolically aimed at the audience. It is inspiring and relatable to any audience. At the end of the show it is Beneatha's character who expresses her future plans, even after they successfully move to Clybourne Heights. He demonstrates the fluidity of his goals by wanting to practice his medical career in Africa, merging his two passions. Beneatha Youngers is the influential prototype of a generation of people, which history has validated. Works Cited Hansberry, Lorraine. A raisin in the sun. New York: Random House, 1958. Print.2) Wilkerson, Margaret B. "'A Raisin in the Sun': Anniversary of an American Classic." Theater Journal Johns Hopkins University Press vol. 38, no. 4. Theater of Color (1986): 441-452. JSTOR. Network. March 29. 2012. .