In Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters are all trying to use the money from Walter Sr's life insurance to support their own dreams and ambitions. Walter Jr, a man who has been systematically oppressed for his entire life, hopes to use it to open a liquor store. The setting contributes to this dream in two major ways. 

A means of empowerment: During the era in which the play was set, Americans who were not white were systematically denied their rights across the entire country. People often have a misconception that because Jim Crow laws existed only in the South, the rest of the country was more just. This myth ignores the insistent and consistent insidious racism that motivated White Americans across the country to deny People of Color housing, loans, jobs, and educational opportunities. Walter, living in this era, sees the liquor store as a chance for independence, wherein he will have the opportunity to make his own money and thereby bypass some of this racism that drives his daily life. 

A means of escape: Walter Jr. desperately wants to get his family and himself out of their current living situation. He sees the liquor store as a means to earning enough money on a consistent basis to allow them to leave and never have to return.