A Dream Deferred in A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman Most people in America would like to achieve financial success. Sometimes living in a capitalist society causes many to become too materialistic. Greed is the characteristic that many Americans then achieve. All this to pursue the American dream. For most Americans, this high status is very difficult to achieve. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman we see how difficult it was for Willy Loman and his sons to achieve the so-called American dream, and these people were proud white Americans. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Son, she examines an African-American family's struggle to climb out of poverty that prevents them from achieving some sort of financial stability, or the American dream. It focuses on Walter's attempt to "make it" or "be someone." It also explores how racial prejudice and economic insecurity affect a Black man's role in his own family, his ability to provide, and his identity. What Hansberry is trying to illustrate is how Western civilization has conditioned society to have materialistic aspirations and how these ideals corrupt the identity of the black man and his family. Many Black men face systemic racism that impacts their role in society. The frustrations a black man faces can greatly affect the family. For example, if Walter gets angry at work or has a bad day, he cannot get angry at his boss and risk losing his job; instead he takes it out on his wife Ruth. Furthermore, the work he does can only provide a lot for the family. He can't even provide his son Travis with some change without going broke himself. What kind of "breadwinner" can a black man be in America? Walter Younger is thirty-five years old and is nothing more than a limousine driver. He is dissatisfied with his job and desperately seeks an opportunity to improve his family's situation. He tells his mother what he thinks of his job when she wouldn't give him the ten thousand dollars; I open and close my car doors all day. I take a man around in his limousine and say, "Yes, sir; no sir, very good sir; shall I do the driving, sir?" Mom, that's not a job... it's nothing at all.