A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry you go back in time to when segregation was still aloud. In this play you meet a cast of people with dreams of a better life. The American Dream, to be specific. This dream is portrayed differently for each character, all of which impact the play. Two of these character

The play “ A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry shows three generation of women under the same roof and the struggle each women face, the dreams that they had and how they overcome the obstacle in their life to move on to something better. The women in the family has had to sacrifice a lot to make the family either happy or progress further in life.

Throughout many works of literature, characters are described to go through a rite of passage, developing the plot and solving conflicts. A rite of passage is when a character goes through life changes, realizing his/her flaws and maturing as a person. Walter Lee Younger is a man that goes through many different character changes, which cause conflict amongst the other characters. Once he goes through his rite of passage, he is able to fix his flaws and mature. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, characterization is used to portray that one must experience a rite of passage in order to mature.

Lorraine Hansberry was a famous African American playwright. Her play Raisin in the Sun takes places during the 1960’s on the southside of Chicago. The play was inspired by Langston Hughes poem “Dream Deferred.” The play follows the Younger family as they try to make their dreams come true. In her play, Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry uses Walter, Beneatha and Mama to show the negative consequences that occur when you defer your dreams.

How does a man that struggles to provide for his family while wanting to pursue big personal goals handle his life? For many men, that is a very good question that with a tough answer. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Walter Lee Younger faces the difficult challenge of raising a family in the 1950s Chicago, which is a heavily racist era. He wants nothing but the best for his family, while also trying to make a name for himself. Walter Lee Younger undergoes many emotional and personality changes, trying to find himself and find out how to provide for his family. From being a man as stubborn as a rock, to one who has learned to appreciate the situations given to him and his family, Walter shows that there can more to life than money

Pecking order, also known as the social hierarchy, is defined as a hierarchy within a social group or community, in which those members at the top assume positions of authority. The expression was also used for an economic theory that explains capital structure. It came from a report on the behavior among chickens, which establish dominance by pecking each other. Although humans do not use the same tactics to prove their power, there are several other factors play a part in one’s social class, such as social interaction, education, and occupation. Social hierarchy shapes every community as the phenomenon puts everyone in an order from most powerful to least popular. This system of sorting, ranking creatures and humans alike, is apparent in

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.

“For many, the American dream have become a nightmare” Bernie Sanders. The American dream is a dream of wealth, success, social status, and power. The American dream for others might be to one day own a place they can call home. In, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she explains how a family from a minority community faced multiple obstacles trying to achieve their American Dream. The Younger family is a family full of dreams, but only dreams.

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a play about African American family living in Southside Chicago. A Raisin in the Sun portrays different ideas of the American dream through the Younger family members, and shows how these individuals struggle to achieve their personal dream in times of racism and social inequality. The character Walter Lee Younger dreams of becoming a successful businessman and providing more for his family.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play about a family of African Americans that are struggling to achieve their dreams. The American Dream is the belief that any goals or dreams can happen if one tries his or her best to achieve them. At the end, Hansberry shows the Younger family realizing that the American Dream is not realistic in order to send a message to the readers that the American Dream is a failure. Through her play, Hansberry also portrays the American Dream as a failure of imagination by making few characters in the book struggle with their dreams because a lot of people cannot imagine something that is against ordinary happen such as a woman being a doctor or a African American family living in a white society. Therefore,

“A Raisin in the Sun”, by Lorraine Hansberry opens with the Younger family receiving a $10,000 insurance check from the death of Mr. Younger. Each character in the novel has unfulfilled dreams, that mostly involve money. Beneatha, the daughter of Mr. Younger, for example, wants to use the money for medical school expenses. However, Walter, the son of Mr. Younger, wants to use the money to invest in a liquor store. Because they already struggle to maintain a stable living condition, the characters have contrasting views on how they money should be spent.

Walter is good at what he does. He thinks of all the different ways people can commit insurance fraud so when those cases do come to him he can catch them. When he met Phyllis he went in hopes of renewing the policy not knowing the wife with her killer looks would be the one he’d meet. Phyllis began to talk to Walter asking how she could be of help and than saying the husband has been thinking of going with the competitor. Being the good at his business, Walter knew there was more to it than just the normal insurance conversation. Wanting to gain power within each other has both characters testing the waters within each other. Not only did Walter notice the conversation was going elsewhere but also the body of Phyllis that he says can “make

The chasing of a mirage is a futile quest where an individual chases an imaginary image that he or she wants to capture. The goal of this impossible quest is in sight, but it is unattainable. Even with the knowledge that failure is inevitable, people still dream of catching a mirage. There is a fine line that separates those who are oblivious to this fact, and to those who are aware and accept this knowledge. The people who are oblivious represent those who are ignorant of the fact that their dream will be deferred. This denial is the core of the concept used in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The perception of the American Dream is one that is highly subjective, but every individual dream ends in its own deferment.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a complex story about the struggles a family of five face while living in a tiny apartment on the southside of Chicago, post-civil war. Ruth, Walter, Mama, and Beneatha all seem to be struggling with the same issue disappointment. Ruth is disappointed in her husband. While Walter is disappointed with his failure of success, Mama is disappointed with her children. Whereas, Beneatha seems to be disappointed with the world.

Theatre has been used across the world as the main form to present an idea or image. These images can be hard to capture, this makes some plays successful and others not so much. Buried inside each and every play are themes, and these themes determine if the image presented is a success or not. The theme I chose in, " A Raisin in the sun", by Lorraine Hansberry, was "Choices".