A Raisin In The Sun A Success

In a carefully worded essay I will discuss the aspect of ‘race’ as a hindrance to the

Raisin in the Sun can be considered as a turning point in the American Art. Lorraine Hansberry is the first African- American and the youngest women writer to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She was born in Chicago (1930 – 1965) and was brought up in a family who publicly fought discrimination against the black people. A Raisin in the Sun is recognizably autobiographical. Lorraine Hansberry was the first playwright to create realistic portraits of African – American life. Hansberry during her short period of life (34 years) has made a remarkable mark on the American theatre.

During the 1900s many black families barely had enough money to pay for the basic necessities needed to live. At times some families would receive a significant sum of money, something they were not used to getting. Deciding on how to spend this money is what caused problems among some families. In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she argues that there are times when in a state of financial instability and where money is a necessity to completing one’s dream that some family members choose to put their dreams over others when suddenly given the opportunity. After Mama’s husband died she was bound to receive an insurance check that would be used by the Younger family. Before even receiving the

Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun,” was a radically new representation of black life, resolutely authentic, fiercely unsentimental, and unflinching in its vision of what happens to people whose dreams are constantly deferred.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, centers on an African American family in the late 1950s. Hansberry directs her work towards specifically the struggles faced by African Americans during the late 1950s. Through the dialogue and actions of her characters, she encourages not only a sense of pride in heritage, but a national and self-pride in African Americans as well.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun opened in a New York theater March 11, 1951. This play, although based on Hansberry’s own life and personal experiences was also inspired by Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem”. Hansberry used this play to tell the story of a 1950’s African American family trying to better themselves. She also used this play to shine a light on the issue of racism that were prominent during this time frame. This highly successful play “ran for 530 performances and was nominated for the 1960 Tony Award for best play”, and has had several adaptations made in its honor(Aurora). Despite the fact that these adaptations were made to equal the original play there are many differences between them and their predecessor.

    Lorraine Hansberry faced many obstacles in her life which has made her  write this book A “Raisin in the Sun.” As said in Blooms Literature “She was the youngest of four children whose parents were well-educated, middle-class activists centrally engaged in the fight against racial discrimination. Early figures in the Civil Rights movement.” In the book “A Raisin in the Sun,” the first play written by an African American she made through experiences of  black people who live on Chicago’s South Side, Hansberry used members of her family as inspiration for her characters. Lorraine Hansberry life had comparisons in this book dealing with poverty

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, is a great example of the struggles faced by an impoverished black family; who strive to deal with the realities of life on the ghetto side of South Chicago. Written in the 1958, this play illustrates the destructive consequences of impecuniousness and repression on African American families. Throughout the play, Hansberry (who is he, describe) shows the day-to-day struggles of a black family and explains the different perspectives on the American Dream. Each character in the play have their own hopes and dreams, however, these end up clashing with one another. Hansberry uses the Younger family to show that despite oppression and subjugation; a dream to live a better life is achievable with family unity and support.

A Raisin in the Sun was written by Lorraine Hansberry and is a play about an African American family who are struggling in the 1950’s to keep the family together. Although the play is portrayed in the 50’s many issues like the economy, racism, and family dynamics the characters had to face; these issues are still issues in the 21st century.

In the four years between 1861 and 1865 this country was in civil war over the rights and freedom of blacks in America. When all was said and done, the blacks won their freedom and gained several rights that would make their lives better. Nearly one hundred years later, in 1959, Lorraine Hansberry wrote her great play, A Raisin in the Sun. It described the everyday life of a black family in the Southside of Chicago sometime after World War II. Throughout the play, Hansberry talks of the difficulties that the Younger family faces trying to get from one day to another; the problems that should have been resolved by the Civil War. Even after the Civil War and

A Raisin in the Sun author, Lorraine Hansberry grew up in the middle-class of Chicago. Although she was separated from the lower-class, she still was categorized as a “lower-class,” and restricted to the ghettos. A Raisin in the Sun takes place in the 1950s. Even though slavery ended in 1865, racism didn’t end. Segregations, unequal hiring, and such practices around the United States started to die down around the 1960s. A Raisin in the Sun portrays the struggle for African-Americans during this period, and what they had to go through just to get to their “American Dream” such as becoming a doctor, owning a business, and living in a well-living neighborhood.

A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sent job applications to different businesses in Chicago and Boston; using made-up names, they discovered the name which were more “black sounding” were fifty percent less likely to be contacted by the employer (Feagin 143). Racism is just as real today as it was in the 1930s when Lorraine Hansberry, a black American writer, was born. Hansberry was born in Chicago to her activist parents Carl and Nanny. Both of her parents participated in many black activist groups and were devoted to stopping housing segregation. Hansberry’s inspiring play, A Raisin in the Sun, is loosely based on her family’s experience on trying to move to a white neighborhood when she was only eight years old. Many years later, Lorraine attended the University of Wisconsin and the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied drama and painting. After college, Lorraine packed her things and moved to New York to continue her writing career. Before she was able to completely support herself through her writing, she had many jobs including reporting and editing (“A Raisin in the Sun”). Hansberry’s writing relates to a diverse racial audience by adding black culture in her writing, discusses controversial topics of the 1950s such as introducing black people into white neighborhoods, and because of her inspiring writing, she paved the way for other black writers.

Willy Harris runs away with the money that Walter had invested in the liquor store and the money for Beneatha's education.

In the 1950’s, discrimination toward African Americans, women, and people of a lower social status controlled society. As a person living with all three qualities, opportunities did not come easily. However, with hard work and determination, Lorraine Hansberry defies the odds and becomes a successful writer of plays that encompass concerns ranging from civil rights to religion. In A Raisin in the Sun and To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Lorraine Hansberry emphasizes the necessity of improvement as an individual and as a nation.

Inspired by the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes, A Raisin in The Sun is a playwright written by Lorraine Hansberry following the lives of individual members of a black family from the Southside of Chicago. An activist beyond her times, Hughes was a lesbian, activist, and a communist in 1950’s America, during the peak of the Red Scare (biography.com). Her revolutionary ideals are seen within her works, including this play, as every character deals with racism in one form or another, which is further exacerbated by the family’s poverty, as they try and decide what to do with the $10,000 life insurance check.