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An Analysis Of Lorraine Hansberry 's ' A Raisin Of The Sun '

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“A Raisin in the Sun” is an autobiographical play written in 1950 by Lorraine Hansberry, an African American writer. The main characters are the Younger family, Mama, his son Walter and her daughter Beneatha. The play dramatizes a conflict between the main characters’ dreams and their actual lives’ struggles in poverty and racism. The main characters’ lives as African-Americans contribute to their feeling of entrapment by poverty and racism. The play predicts the black society struggles in the years to come. Although their day to day lives in poverty put their individual dreams on hold, each one’s pursue to realize their dreams continues. For example, Walter, though constantly frustrated on not able to become rich quickly, he maintains his dream of finding a new way to support his family. For Mama, Walter’s mother, dreams are more important than material wealth, so she takes care and holds onto her plant. Her plant symbolizes her dream, her dream of taking care of her family by owning a house with a garden and a yard. Hence, she uses half of her husband’s death insurance money to make a deposit to buy a house. Dream that she shared with her husband before he dies. Walter depends on the rest of the insurance money from his father’s death to invest the money in a liquor store with his friends. Likewise, Walter’s sister, Beneatha, fights to hold on onto her dream of becoming a doctor and realizes she also depends on her father’s death insurance money to be able to attend

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