Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

In Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” (1959), she reveals the life of the Youngers family. In doing so, there surfaces a detrimental ideology that destroys the family financially and in their overall happiness. In Act II Scene I, Walter, the father figure of the family, says, “Why? You want to know why? 'Cause we all tied up in a race of people that don 't know how to do nothing but moan, pray and have babies!” (Hansberry 532). By way of explanation, the family and much of the African-American community for the 1960’s, is built upon a loose ideology that is a brutal cycle that infects the lives of those who inhabit the area; tired of all the commotion from the Caucasians who, to them, miraculously achieve a life of ruling and

The struggles of being African American have been very evident throughout history. To present day many African Americans (commonly referred to as "black") endure injustice and inequality. As many racial protests and movies have been made to depict such hardships, so have books. The controversial topics of racism and gender roles are spread throughout A Raisin in the Sun. Lorraine Hansberry lived through such a time where racial and gender discrimination was at its highest point; which she portrays in her book. As the Younger family eventually developed into a family so do the gender issues. My goal in this paper is to identify gender injustice as it has been dominantly illustrated, whether that be where the women stand or what the men should be doing as opposed to the women having higher power.

According to a 2017 publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter, black men in America earn 80% of what white men earn (Daley, Bart, Joseph). This illuminates the wage disparity and the notion that America is racially biased in terms of compensation. Power is often determined by the amount of money one has. How power is determined by race and skin color is a central theme in both A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is also exemplified in US history, as shown in the documentary, American Dilemma. These sources show that the power of colored people is extremely diminished by their lack of access to good jobs and therefore money.

American was built on dreams. Many people do come to this freed country for all kinds of reasons such as; having a better education, trying to have a better life, and just following their dreams. In the book A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, a story about the Younger family living in America in the 1950s or 1960s, tells all about the struggles of living as a colored person in American. Throughout the story, the Younger goes troubles that an African American family would go through back then, but yet somehow achieve their American dream.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun is modeled after Langston Hughes 1959 poem “Dream Deferred.” Hughes asked “What happens to a dream deferred?” (l. 1). And later goes on to saying “dry up like a raisin in the sun” (l. 2-3) and “stink like rotten meat” (l. 6). The Young family all have their personal dreams and are all deferred at some point. Walter wants to achieve riches by investing the money from the insurance check into a liquor store. His sister Beneatha would rather have the insurance money to herself and pay for her medical school. Both Mama and Ruth want to leave the tiny house they are cramped in and move into a nicer home, mainly for Travis. They want Travis to have his own room, not a living room and coach, but an

The book Raisin in the sun took place in the 1950’s it was in Chicago southside in this era there was racism and segregation. The character is Walter and the theme is money and morality. Walters choice on using the money for the liquor store shows how insensitive he is and doesn't even think about his mother's opinion on the matter.

Columbia Pictures' A Raisin in the Sun is a 1961 dramatic motion picture, starring Sidney Poitier. It's based on a 1959 Broadway play by Lorraine Hansberry. It tells the story of an African American family's personal and social struggle as they try to improve their way of life. Its major themes include poverty, racism, manhood and cultural pride.

Is money really important to the society? Well let me tell you about the play A Raisin in the Sun, starts off with a family, the Younger family, who lived on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1950’s. They struggle with lack of money, however, they all have a difference in the way they think of solving their situation. Walter Lee, being the protagonist of the play, wants to invest his father’s insurance money in a new liquor store venture, in which his father had passed away. Throughout the play, Walter shows that he is only concerned about money and has no morality, because he wants to become rich fast, quits his cab driving job, and putting his family to the side.

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 dream is defined as an aspiration that somebody has or hopes to achieve. Throughout A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the characters try to attain their dreams but this does not always work out, yet they still live on and create new dreams to work towards. At the beginning of the play, Beneatha aspired to be a doctor in America after she completed a college degree. Walter dreamt of owning a liquor store to earn money, but did not care much about his family's opinions. Mama originally just wanted to own a new house since she had never felt as if she had a big house of her own. She and her husband had always wanted a better home, and she thought it was the perfect opportunity to buy one because the

“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.

Through her African American plays, A Raisin in the Sun and The Drinking Gourd, Lorraine Hansberry uses her race’s own patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, and usage to disrupt the common American notion of African Americans as lazy, uneducated, mammies, a race without identity, culture or dreams. She shows how language is powerful and can give people a sense of identity. Steven R. Carter in his book Hansberry’s Drama: Commitment and Complexity quotes Hansberry’s own words: “Language symbols, spoken and written, have permitted Man to abstract his awareness of the world and transmit his feelings about it to his fellows. . . . That may be the most extraordinary accomplishment in the universe for all we know. . . .” (153).

In the featured article How to Read Literature like a Professor in the Chapter “INTRODUCTION: How’d He Do That?” The author Thomas C. Foster Starts discussing Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and giving a suggestion that Mr. Lindner is the devil. The author is trying to make us read and look at the story from a different angle and to connect to different texts. For example the author explains how in the old western culture there were many stories about bargains with the Devil where "The hero is offered something he desperately wants... And all he has to give up is his soul", the author wants us to connect this to the book and realize that “The bargain with the devil” is the same as the offer

The Scholarly Article “Review of the Original 1959 Broadway Production” explains the story/play A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry. The article was found on Huntingtonthetatre.org, Accessed on August 27, 2015.The article begins with a short introduction of Loraine Hansberry and how she touches common issues that many African American families were struggling with in 1980. The play is about a lower class family that lives in South Chicago striving to overcome poverty. The characters of the story include a widow mother and her two children; she also has daughter in law and grandson who live with her as well. Claudia McNeil is described as a simple spiritual Matriarch, with a son who is driven to be a successful business owner,

A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry talks about how money and dreams are directly related to their place in society. Everyone has a particular dream Mama wants to provide a house for her family. Beneatha wants to go to medical school and become a doctor. Walter wants to own a business but has no set plan on how to achieve that. The play focuses on these different dreams and how they are deferred relating to Langston Hughes poem.