Walter Lee is “a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties, inclined to quick nervous movements and erratic speech habits—and always in his voice there is a quality of indictment” (5). Walter Lee is impulsive, sensitive, and emotional. He has become beaten down by life as a Black man in the 1950s United States. Unlike his sister, Beneatha, Walter has had limited education. He works as a chauffeur to support his wife, Ruth, and son, Travis. For Walter, opening car doors for white people and offering unquestioning submissiveness and respect has chipped away at his sense of his own masculinity. 

After his father’s death, Walter Lee has yet to step into the patriarchal role, although by naming Walter after his father, his parents designated him as the next in line. Walter’s late father was a man with faults—“hard-headed, mean, kind of wild with women” (29)—who fiercely loved his children. Walter Sr. worked hard his entire life for his family and grieved powerfully when he and Mama lost a baby. Like his father, Walter Jr. is hard-headed and often mean, especially to his wife and sister. But he is desperate to escape toiling endlessly like his father.