Comparison Of To Kill A Mockingbird And A Raisin In The Sun

As we see from her first entrance, Beneatha is a loud and outspoken character. She is a single young female living in a home with Ruth and Mama. Quite similar as characters, they share traditional values and believe women should care for the wellbeing of their family. Ruth and Mama take pride in doing domestic service work as their source of income and are continuously seen putting their children’s needs before theirs. Hansberry uses Beneatha’s character to contradict these values and introduce a character with modern feminist views. Beneatha fiercely fires back to anyone who questions her life goals. She is constantly found bickering with Walter about her dream of becoming a doctor. She is reminded by him that “girls” shouldn’t be doctors. Beneatha voices her feelings on male dependency when she mentions to Mama and Ruth “Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet - if I ever get married”, and they respond with a shocked “if!”(50). The idea of a woman not wanting to get married was shocking to Mama and Ruth. Beneatha feels that she does not need to be dependent on a man; she has one goal, to become a doctor. She does not need a man in her life, she feels perfectly

Another theme and issue that arrives from the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, is racism. During the 1950’s blacks and whites were segregated. The house the Younger’s purchased was in the Clybourne Park neighborhood, an all white neighborhood. When Lena told the family they were moving to Clybourne Park they stood with amazement. “Mama, there ain’t no colored people in Clybourne Park” (p.734). The family heard of other colored families’ houses being set on fire in this neighborhood, they were concerned that the same thing would happen to them.

A Raisin in the Sun skillfully exemplifies many aspects of ‘black’ culture, especially how different ‘black archetypes’ may make different decisions based on how they see race and themselves within a culture. This is impertinent as a plot device in the play, and in the culture itself which the play is expressing. Black men at the time were forced to consider themselves into a certain way both for themselves and their families, and this play show’s how that unnecessary consideration can affect their decision making and overall desires. There are three ‘black man’ archetypes given in the play; Walter, George Murchison, and Asagai, and they are all similar in the fact that they are black men, but differ in how they believe black men should act, especially when it comes to family and heritage.

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird portray prejudicial parameters that properly represent the social issues of the early twentieth century. Both authors use issues of race, gender roles, and social status to connect their work to the nonfictional events occurring in their own lives. The characters in both novels experience personal judgement, as well as the ability to witness its effect on those around them. Racial inequality is presented throughout history by rulings of the court. Gender roles also negatively presented society with the problem of the inability of some to aspire to their greatest potential. Social status presents as another problem in the time period of the novel, being that those of the lower class were forced to adapt to a new lifestyle. In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, prejudice sets figurative lines that imprison some of the characters due to race, sex, and social status which reign true in the time period surrounding the settings of the novels.

Every person who comes to America has a common motive, with underlying details causing their motives to differ. Some come to America with the hope of freedom from the difficult lives they face in their home countries, while others will arrive because of the various opportunities for success that America has to offer. But most of all, many believe the country can give them the chance to find who they are and figure out what their goals are their new life. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun surrounds a black family in the southside of Chicago, known as the Younger’s. The play gives insight on the life of the family, and the many difficulties they face as each family member tries to achieve their American Dream. Beneatha Younger, the daughter

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.

For many years, America has struggled with equality. Through all the assumptions and stereotypes, America has been beaten. The amount of inequality in America has dramatically decreased throughout the years. Social equality is something that everyone has always wanted. One of the biggest inequalities is African American rights. Constantly there is always a change being made that has made African American rights much better. Within Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the audience is introduced to social equality by Scout Finch in Maycomb, Alabama. Consequently, since she is so young, she struggles to understand why there is inequality in the 1930s. Through all the harsh comments and assumptions of character interaction in the novel and

Though there was a heightened sense of tension over civil rights in the late 1950s when A Raisin in the Sun was written, racial inequality is still a problem today. It affects minorities of every age and dynamic, in more ways than one. Though nowadays it may go unnoticed, race in every aspect alters the way African-Americans think, behave, and react as human beings. This is shown in many ways in the play as we watch the characters interact. We see big ideas, failures, and family values through the eyes of a disadvantaged group during an unfortunate time in history. As Martin Luther King said, Blacks are “...harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what

Throughout Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, we see the positive and negative effects of chasing the American Dream. Hansberry expresses her different views on the American Dream through the characters and she portrays the daily struggles of a 1950 black family throughout A Raisin in the Sun. In this play, she is able to effectively show the big impact that even small decisions can make on a family. Hansberry shows the many different attachments that come with the fulfillment of this American Dream. Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, each family member has their own pursuit of happiness, which is accompanied by their American Dream.

Harper Lee’s American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, is tale of the coming-of-age of Scout Finch as she grows up in the small Alabama county of Maycomb. Through her story, Scout finds that people are not all she thought they were, and that people were not equal to each other in one another’s eyes. Maycomb was split into several social groups that did not like to mix, and who were full of preconceived notions of one another, mostly resulting from feelings of superiority and lack of understanding of one another. In this novel, Harper Lee employs details, metaphors, and imagery to support the theme that prejudice is derived from lack of understanding and feelings of superiority.

She strives, and works hard to achieve her medical degree and become a doctor. She is independent, headstrong, and clever, with the need to express herself and be heard. She rebels against her mother and questions the unfair treatment towards her, “Why? Why can’t I say what I want around here, like everybody else?”(Act 1). She does agree with her mother’s view on maintain her African root and she does so with her boyfriend Asagi. Beneatha is very proud of the fact that she is independent, and that she doesn’t need anybody, but her boyfriend point out how much she depends on the family. She also doesn’t agree with the fact that her brother wants her to be like all the other women and become a nurse and get married. Walter is trying to shape her into society’s image of women in the 1950’s, but she rebels against him to, by blaming him for losing the money. Beneatha also struggles with her self-image, and we see her discover herself throughout the play. She cut her hair off as a way of defying the stereotypical female. She is a feminist who represents the changing role of women of the

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun is an extraordinary work for her time. Written in the mid-1950s right before the heat of the Civil Rights Movement, the idea of centralizing a play on an African-American family, the Youngers, was extremely progressive. Hansberry portrays her characters in a light that was positive opposed to the more common negative view people had towards African-Americans. The fact that she included cultural diversity into a work of literature changed the idea of art. (umich)

In Loraine Hansberry’s play, “A raisin in The Sun” outlines the racial controversy in the late 1950s. Identifying related topics such as segregation, discrimination, and Jim Crow laws. As the play progresses, the family finds themselves in a financial frenzy. The financial opportunity, influences the Youngers move from Southside Chicago to Clybourne Park. During the transition from a “black” to a “white” neighborhood, the family is faced with discrimination. They’re at odds with being themselves and being “white” enough to fit in, Hansberry depicts this theory by presenting the characters with conflicted ideals of their own racial identity and the persona they are to portray as they try to achieve their dreams.

Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes us back to the 1930’s during the cruel Great Depression. Throughout the story a reader will be exposed to a world full of extremists in small town of Maycomb Alabama. Alabama is a place where everybody knows everybody’s business, and where discrimination permeates the town. The discrimination varies in this book from racial issues, to gender inequality, and people being judged because they are shut-ins that know one really knows. Discrimination was a problem and still is a problem, but the novel of To Kill a Mockingbird explores upon the different issues with discrimination.

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a remarkable play written in 1959 by an African American author about an African American family. This time period was in the early days of the modern awakening of civil rights awareness. It was a timely play challenging the then current stereotypical view of a black family by depicting a realistic portrayal of a specific black family with aspirations, hopes, dreams, dignity, and ambition as would be expected from all families regardless of race. The play is also timeless because it presents relevant themes of preserving family unity and breaking through racial stereotypes that still challenge current society.