“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
The play “A Raisin in the Sun” illustrates three main conflicts in the younger family life; they are internal, social, and interpersonal. The conflicts in the story give insight as to who the characters are and what they really want out of life. Conflict is one of the underlying themes in the play, which was written by Lorraine Hansberry, it helps to tell the story and explain the situation that the Younger family is in. The characters in this story were African American, but they could have been from any ethnic group because the problems that they have to face apply to us all. Ossie Davis said it best when he said the “ it didn’t really have to be about
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.
“ A Raisin in the Sun” is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry about the life of an African American family during the era of segregation. The play starts off with the Younger family receiving a 10,000 dollar check from Mr. Younger’s insurance policy. The family argues over what they are going to do with it. Mama wants to buy a house with it, Walter wants to invest in a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to use the money to go to medical school. The contrast of the characters’ personalities fuels the conflict and drives the story forward. Beneatha is a young college student and the sister of Walter. She has a dream of becoming a doctor. Beneatha is a dynamic character who is easily influenced by her family and the people
The story of this play is simple and the majority of African-Americans faced such issues in the 1950’s, living on the south side of Chicago, struggles with poverty, dignity and dreams of a better life. Wanting better for your children and trying to fit in, while maintaining family values. A Raisin in the Sun is an excellent example of the relationship between family values and conflict. In this play it portrays: values and purpose of dreams, the need to fight for racial discrimination and the importance of family.
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about segregation, triumph, and coping with personal tragedy. Set in Southside Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the individual dreams of the Younger family and their personal achievement. The Younger's are an African American family besieged by poverty, personal desires, and the ultimate struggle against the hateful ugliness of racism. Lena Younger, Mama, is the protagonist of the story and the eldest Younger. She dreams of many freedoms, freedom to garden, freedom to raise a societal-viewed equal family, and freedom to live liberated of segregation. Next in succession is Beneatha Younger, Mama's daughter, assimilationist, and one who dreams of aiding people by breaking down
Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American female playwright born in Chicago in 1930. Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, has won awards such as the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play and is loosely based on events involving her own family. This play portrays a poor African-American family of five known as the Younger Family, living on the South side of Chicago in a run-down one-bedroom apartment, "Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years—and they are tired" (Hansberry 937). This quote describes just how worn down the furniture is within the apartment due to overuse, but was once chosen with
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play about the financial, social, and internal struggles of an African American family in the post WWII era, on a richer, more philosophical level it is about dreams, and whether you should sacrifice them in order to better provide for your dependents today. The entire Younger family shares one small apartment, with three generations of people living in an apartment with only a single window. When living in the face of adversity and under such conditions, a person’s true ideas and values come out and are plain for the reader to see. There is no exception for the women in the Younger household; three generations living under one roof, during time of social change and familial hardship, can create
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 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.
Lorraine Hansberry’s novel, A Raisin in the Sun, revolves around a middle-class African-American family, struggling during World War II. By reading about the Younger’s true to life experiences, one learns many important life lessons. One of the aforementioned would be that a person should always put family’s needs before their own. There are many examples of this throughout the novel. Just a few of these would be the example of Ruth and her unborn baby, Walter regaining the respect of his family, and Mama and her unselfish ways.
This dream is something you can tell Walter has dreamt of repeatedly and is clearly what he wants for himself. This dream he has visualized is not only about money but is about respect that he will have and the status he will have when he is a wealthy man. When it pertains to Beneatha her dream is to be an independent woman, to become one she wants to become a doctor. By being a doctor, she can provide for herself and might not even want to get married, to the dismay of her mother’s wishes. She later realizes that she can’t always be independent as pointed out by Walter, “You just got your mother’s interest at heart, ain’t you, girl? You such a nice girl-but if Mama got that money she can always take a few thousand and help you through school too-can’t she?” ().
A Raisin in the Sun was a play written in the late 1950’s analyzing the cruel effects of racism amongst the Younger family. The younger family suffers from racial discrimination within their living space, place of employment, and the housing industry. Racism has been going on for a very long time in the United States and will always continue to exist. Racism has not only led to political but also social issues. "A Raisin in the Sun confronted Whites for an acknowledgement that a black family could be fully human, 'just like us."(qtd. White fear.) The setting took place in the ghetto, south of Chicago where mainly African Americans settled. In this division, apartments and houses were overly priced, crowded and poorly maintained. Crime rates were extremely high and most families lived in poverty. Due to segregated housing, it was a daily struggle for black families who had hopes in leaving the ghetto for better lives.
One of the most notable plays on the topic of racial minorities and family issues, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, has continued to be popular since it was written in 1959. The play is about an African American family, consisting of five members, who live in Southside Chicago during the post-World-War-Two era. The Younger family is crowded in a tiny, worn, and shabby apartment and they are fairly poor. They never have much surplus money until Walter’s father, and Mama’s husband, died and the family received a life-insurance check for ten thousand dollars. The play follows the family’s journey through the fights and distress that come from suddenly obtaining a large amount of money and the differing opinions on how the money
In the words of Jim Cocola and Ross Douthat, Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun to mimic how she grew up in the 1930s. Her purpose was to tell how life was for a black family living during the pre-civil rights era when segregation was still legal (spark notes). Hansberry introduces us to the Youngers’, a black family living in Chicago’s Southside during the 1950s pre-civil rights movement. The Younger family consists of Mama, who is the head of the household, Walter and Beneatha, who are Mama’s children, Ruth, who is Walter’s wife, and Travis, who is Walter and Ruth’s son. Throughout the play the Youngers’ address poverty, discrimination, marital problems, and abortion. Mama is waiting on a check from the
A Raisin in the Sun is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959. This is a story about an African American family striving to reach the American Dream despite significant financial difficulties and a racially oppressive environment in the postwar era. The passage I chose was from Act 2, scene 3 of the play. This is when the chairmen of the neighborhood committee in Clybourne Park, Mr. Lindner comes to speak with the Younger family about their future presence in the neighborhood. This passage reveals the kind of values that are held by Mr. Lindner and those he represents. His character reveals how the American dream of many white individuals during the 1950’s was to keep everything exactly how it has always been with the “American dream” being attainable to a select race and people group. This meant keeping area’s segregated such as the neighborhoods in which people live including Clybourne Park. This biased agenda desired to keep the Young family from achieving their very own personal American dream of owning a house in a nice suburban area with all the amenities it might afford. Mr. Lindner’s perspective on the American dream is essential in understanding the theme of this play. Without his character, one may never see the racist reality and closed mindedness that was a part of many African American’s everyday life in the 1950’s. This character’s view illustrates the battle and conflict between the white homeowners trying to keep their environment segregated and African