Money and finances are a common thread throughout the play. Each character has a different relationship with it and it works as an obstacle for many of them throughout.
For example, Walter Lee craves a life where money is not an issue. Money and comfort are direct correlations for Walter. He resents the wealthy people that he chauffeurs around all day and due to this, decides to risk it all and open a liquor store. Although he does care for his family, his actions can be viewed as selfish, although he means well and wants to provide for his family.
For Mama, money represents the hard work and dedication that embodied her late husband. Her husband allowed the family to move into a new house in a new neighborhood and for her, the money allows her to fulfill her husbands wish of the family being stable.
Ruth is pregnant and worries how to care for a baby when there is a severe lack of money. However, she is still determined to move into their new home even if she must clean houses. Money is a worry for her, but she does not let it limit her family's goals.
Beneatha is determined to go to college and become a doctor. Although her brother would prefer she "marry a man with some loot" she knows that achieving her dreams are her way out and a way to support her family.
Each character in the play has their own relationship with money. This is evident in the decision and choices that they make. Like other elements such a race, class, education, family, etc, money is a theme woven into the play and a big component of it.
The Younger family is a poor, working-class family striving to live together in tenement housing in the South Side of Chicago in the early 1960s.
A lack of money has left them with a lack of space. The money that Lena Younger retains from her dead husband's insurance policy has allowed them more space, though it is a space in which they are not wanted: all-white Clybourne Park.
When Ruth, Walter Younger's wife, finds out that she is pregnant, the concern is over how much it will cost to feed the child and that having another one could prevent the other characters' ability to do things. Ruth herself insists that they will move into a house as planned, even if she has to scrub the floor of every white family in town to afford it.
Walter's ambitions to open a liquor store with his friend Willy have less to do with a desire to provide for his family and more to do with becoming one of the men whom he chauffeurs around during the day.
Money, in the play, is the thing that stands between the characters and the comfortable, secure lives that they want. For some, such as Walter and his sister Beneatha, who dreams of being a doctor, it is what they need to become the people that they want to be.
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