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A Raisin Of The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry

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Lorraine Hansberry, a female playwright and black activist, spent almost all of her life dealing with American racism, poverty, and lack of social mobility. As a person who witnessed the daily struggles of African Americans, Hansberry wanted to expose the hypocrisy in the idea that America was the land of equal opportunity. As a result, in 1959, Hansberry wrote the play, A Raisin in the Sun, which details the Youngers, an African American family, who experienced racism, poverty, and the lack of social mobility during the 1950s in Chicago’s Southside. Throughout the play, the Younger family members try to make their respective dreams come true and try to deal with the problems that surround them. However, the process of one family member achieving his or her own dream stifles another family member’s respective dream. Hansberry uses the Younger family characters to argue that America is not a land of equal opportunity due to racism, poverty, and the lack of social mobility and to make American society aware of the disadvantages that African Americans are faced with.
Hansberry uses Walter Younger, an African American male character who aspires to have a better socioeconomic position in the United States, to reveal the economic and social inequities African Americans face. During the play, Walter Younger states that he is “tired of everything […] [and] the way [they] live” (Hansberry 32) because he doesn’t have a career to help him move up in society and all he can give “is
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