Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

A great example of a character who was unable to attain his dream was dear Lennie. Lennie was one who didn’t expect much from life. All he hoped for and desired was to be able to pet the soft coats of rabbits and be able to tend

Many people go through different moralities in there life some that they believe can change their life for the better but don’t know the consequences. This ties in with issues involving money. Many people believe that money is the way to happiness and do what they can to get money even if it means to hurt your loved ones. In the play “Raisin in the Sun” Walter Lee Younger is man that lives in South Side Chicago and at point in life that he’s in, he wants to do something in his life and make a difference for colored people. The way he believes he can accomplish that is by opening a bar to make money for his family while believing money is the only source of happiness. Walters ideal morality was to make sure he got his hands on the insurance money so he could open up the bar even if it meant his family would suffer when things went wrong.

Hansberry develops this particular issue by illustrating how important success is to the second generation of the Younger family, Walter and Beneatha. After a long heritage of slavery and servitude, the Younger siblings want to take advantage of this age of social reform and break from the binding traditions that have beset their race in the past. Mama illustrated this when she says, “Son – I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers – but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. We ain’t never been that – dead inside” (Hansberry, 143). They view the expected income of $10,000 in insurance money as a gateway to get what they each desire and achieve success. Walter Younger feels degraded and miserable in his job as a

What is the meaning of money for you? For some people money means the world to them and even where the only place they can find happiness. However, for others money doesn’t mean anything to them; those people can live just with what they have and still be happy. According to “A Raisin in the Sun” written by Lorraine Hansberry demonstrates some of the conflicts people of color had in the late 1950’s when the subject involved money. Walter, one of the main characters of the play and also the only grown man of the family had the most problems with money, but at the same time he just wanted the best for his family. Beneatha, Walter’s sister, wanted to prove that a black woman could be a doctor not just a nurse to the racist society they were living in. Mama, the mother of Walter and Beneatha. Always trying to do the right thing for her family. All Mama wanted was a successfully family in a perfect house.

In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the story is set in 1950s Southside Chicago, in a red-lined neighborhood. Although the majority of the story is set within the scope of the neighborhood, the perceptions of the world held by the inhabitants of that neighborhood vary greatly. Mama and Beneatha, two quintessential members of the Younger family and cohabitors of this neighborhood, have vastly disparate perceptions of the world, likely because of the discrepancies, fueled by changing times, in what they each consider to be the baseline of society , from which they wish to improve.

    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

In the Southside of Chicago in the 1950’s, the Youngers are a typical poverty stricken family that works hard to be able to rise out of poverty. Each family member has a different dream of being able to reach this goal. Mama has the dream of owning her own house, Walter wants to be able to open a liquor store, Beneatha wants to go to school to become a doctor, and Ruth wants to move out of their current apartment. In the play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry shows the effect of a deferred dream in Walter Lee’s character.

In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry many character have dreams. Beneatha’s to become a doctor, Mama’s to buy a house and Walter’s to own a liquor store. These dreams affect each character differently. In A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry illustrates Walter Lee’s dream of owning a liquor store affects him negatively by causing him to constantly be thinking about money and causing him to make bad decisions, it also affects him positively, by teaching him an important life lesson.

The 1960’s were a harsh time for African Americans and females. A Raisin in the Sun which was written by Lorraine Hansberry shows this very well by introducing different characters that represent different values during the time. The play involves an African American family that is struggling to survive with the way that their situation is. The characters shown throughout the play introduce key ideas from the 1960’s. The characters also introduce different contrasts that can be analyzed. The play also introduces an interesting topic on dignity. The three big points to analyze are the characters in the play, the contrast between characters, and the importance of dignity.

Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago on March 19, 1930. Hansberry was an African American. She was one of four siblings that include two brothers and one sister. In the 1930’s racism and segregation was prevalent in the time. Her parents were “civil rights activist Carl and Nannie Hansberry” Tillman. She was raised in the Woodlawn neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Her family was one of the wealthy African-American families in Chicago. When she was five years old, her parents got her a fur coat. She wore it to school one day and she got beaten for wearing it. Also, when she was eight years old she moved to the white suburbs of Chicago and once her and her family arrived at their new homes they faced harassment and threats by mobs of white people. She nearly died after getting hit in the head with a brick. Her father went to court to fight for the legal right to live in that new neighborhood. The Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee Weston Playhouse Theater Company. The characters in A Raisin in the Sun are black and live in Chicago just like Hansberry. The characters are also going through segregation/racism, similar to Hansberry.

The events of A Raisin in the Sun revolve around the main theme of dreams and manhood. In the story, the Younger family has always had big dreams, but due to racism and prejudice, they unceasingly watch their dreams deferred. Walter’s dream throughout the play is to provide for his family by becoming a businessman, but his dreams are postponed after he must work full-time at a menial, trifling, and meaningless job as a chauffeur. When Mama gives him the remaining sixty-five thousand dollars of the life insurance check, he believes that he can finally achieve his dream, only to loose the money and have his dreams deferred once more. The title “A raisin in the sun” is also a reference to dreams, from the poem “Harlem”. In the poem, “a raisin in the sun “is a metaphor for deferred dreams. When a grape is baked in the sun, it shrinks, and withers, but does not disappear. Similarly, members of the Younger family have dreams, but the dreams wither and are deferred due to their financial struggles. Even though the dreams wither, they do not disappear, and they renew their dreams after they receive the life insurance check. Mama’s old plant is a symbol of her perseverance for her long-time dream of having her own house in spite of austere circumstances. The plant struggles to grow by the apartment kitchen window with its lack of light and resources, but Mama keeps it alive regardless. Similarly, her family does not have adequate recourses (they don’t have a house nor enough money). When her dream of moving the to house seems to be delayed, she goes to the window and looks at her plant before declaring, “Well—ain’t it a mess in here, though? […] All this unpacking and everything we got to do.” It is significant how she looks at her plant when her dream seems to be deferred again, since it means that she is looks at the plant for hope. At the very end of the play, Mama returns to the apartment to move her potted plant to a garden in the new house, symbolizing that she finally achieved her dream of raising her family in a true house.

In the book “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, there were characters whose dreams were stated, some of which were shattered by greed and misfortune and others which would eventually come to be true. The first dream that came about was Walter’s dream of one day owning and maintaining a liquor store. He would do anything to attempt to get his dream to come true, but his mama wanted anything but that to happen. His mama had a dream of her own though, she dreamed of one day owning her own house, where her whole family could stay comfortably. She dreamed this because in the apartment that she resided in was too small, and dumpy, as Ruth called it. Her grandson Travis had to sleep on the couch, and all

A Raisin in the Sun is written by a famous African- American play write, Lorraine Hansberry, in 1959. It was a first play written by a black woman and directed by a black man, Lloyd Richards, on Broadway in New York. The story of A Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry’s own early life experiences, from which she and her whole family had to suffer, in Chicago. Hansberry’s father, Carol Hansberry, also fought a legal battle against a racial restrictive covenant that attempted to stop African- American families from moving in to white neighborhoods. He also made the history by moving his family to the white section of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in 1938. The struggle of Lorraine Hansberry’s family inspired her to write the

All of the significant characters in the play have dreams. Walter wants to start a business in order to better support his family. Beneatha, his sister, wants to get an education to become a doctor. Mama and Ruth want their family to be happy. They all believe that their lack of money is holding them back, so when they receive the insurance check they believe they will finally be able to achieve them.

During the story, “A Raisin in The Sun”, holds two influences, Walter, and Mama, who have the most significant impact among the plot. Here’s why; Lorraine Hansberry has created this play to prove what life was like before our modern generation had come about. As to why Lorraine brought Walter and Mama to help make up the conflicts and rising action to the plot. If the play was created without Walter, it would only be a story based upon, Beneatha, and Mama. There’d be no Ruth, no Travis, or new baby soon to come about. Whereas, if there was no Mama around anymore, the family would have no intelligence, faith, or leader, to help the children determine how to handle their problems or know what to do with themselves.