At the beginning of the play, Walter is always thinking of how to become rich. He is money orientated despite the fact they have don’t have enough money for their selves and they have very rough living conditions. He is also very arrogant and selfish. He wanted to become just like Willy Harris, his white friend.
Walter changes a lot throughout the play. When mama gives Walter the cheque, he is fascinated and really excited. A stage direction to support this is ‘Walter sits down and grasps it close and counts the zeros off.’ When he finds out the money has been stolen, he’s really upset.
When Lindner comes to Walter’s house, Walter is very tense. ‘A long minute passes and Walter slowly gets up’, this is a stage direction, which is used to show us Water’s body language. Walter is intimated by Lindner and is feeling quite vulnerable and nervous, a stage direction to support this is ‘Walter has begun the trek out of the room, slowly and awkwardly, rather like a small boy.’
When Walter starts talking to Lindner, he speaks in disjointed sentences. A quote to support this piece of evidence is ‘And-uh-well, my father, well he was a laborer most of his life. This shows us that Walter is ashamed of what his father was he also finds it difficult to tell Lindner. Walter has a change of heart; suddenly he has become a family man who’s proud of himself.
‘Finally straightening up’- this is a stage direction which tells us that Walter is finally confident. At first Walter thought it was stupid for Beneatha to become a doctor, but he’s proud of her now. A quote to support this is ‘And that’s my sister over there and she’s going to become a doctor- and we are very proud.’
In my opinion I would say that Walter was a greedy man who didn’t care about his family, he only had importance in his dreams and money. My opinion changed at the end of the play because Walter considered his family more important than his dreams, which was the way it should have been. He just wanted his family to have a better life than their present one.
