Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

The play ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ by ‘Lorraine Hansberry’ is about a matriarchy, Lena Younger or known as “Mama” to her family the Youngers who are poverty stricken family. She is about to receive insurance money from her husband’s life insurance policy, which is rightfully hers. However each member of the Youngers family we come into contact with have a plan to use the money for themselves, each individual’s through-line plays a vital role in their dreams, thoughts and choices in the end. Throughout the play the family have experiences that money can’t buy happiness and the effects of racial prejudice emerge.

(page 45-46)” In the first act alone, the audience is shown the great disparities between the American dream for a white man and the American dream for people of color. However, now with this insurance money from Big Walter’s death, there is a chance of someone their dream, the problem that the Younger’s face is which someone should get to use the money. Beneatha needs it for college to become a doctor, Walter needs it to invest in a liquor store so he can finally “be somebody.” But Mama wants to use that money to buy a house. She wants to leave their current rented apartment and she wants a nice house in the suburbs where she could have a garden and “with a yard where Travis could play in the summer. (page 44)” Mama believes that a change of scenery is what the family needs and that it will bring them back together. These three characters have the most conflicting wants for the

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry shows how people’s actions can be perceived as both good and bad. In this play, the Younger family is trying to achieve the American dream, “the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American”(cite dictionary.com). The Youngers are a black family living in a poor part of Chicago. The family inherits ten thousand dollars from a relative. Each family member has their own idea about how to use this money to fulfill their dreams. The play uses the decisions of the family members to make the reader think about what are the right choices. Mama is the matriarch of the family, and she wants to use the money to buy a house in a white neighborhood. She wants to move to this neighborhood because it is a better environment for her family. Lindor is a man who lives in the white neighborhood and he appears to make decisions for the benefit of the family. The decisions that Mama and Lindor make and the actions they take can be viewed as good or bad for both the individual and the community.

What would you do if you were in a family crisis and given a 10,000 for your family member passing away? In the play Walter Younger goes through many different moral problems and has bad ego due to the money that has been given to the family. In this play during the late 1950s, there was a lot of racial problems, black skin color was discriminated and abused. Walter younger shows that he cares more about money rather than caring about his families care and well being. He rather open up a liquor store to get more money and keep his family living in the ran down apartment not thinking about all of the bad stuff that can possibly happen to his kin. Throughout this book making this a great mood changing book to read many sequal of events happen throughout the book.

Many people go through different moralities in there life some that they believe can change their life for the better but don’t know the consequences. This ties in with issues involving money. Many people believe that money is the way to happiness and do what they can to get money even if it means to hurt your loved ones. In the play “Raisin in the Sun” Walter Lee Younger is man that lives in South Side Chicago and at point in life that he’s in, he wants to do something in his life and make a difference for colored people. The way he believes he can accomplish that is by opening a bar to make money for his family while believing money is the only source of happiness. Walters ideal morality was to make sure he got his hands on the insurance money so he could open up the bar even if it meant his family would suffer when things went wrong.

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

The adage “age is just a number” is true for the most part, a generational age gap can result in diverse ideas, as such is the social and technological advancement of society. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Youngers, an African-American family that is financially struggling, is given an opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty when Mama, the matriarch of the family, receives a ten thousand dollar insurance check upon her husband’s death. Disagreement as to what to do with the money arises, and the Younger family struggle to set aside their problems and differences in order to reunite as the family that they were before. In the play, Hansberry effectively communicates the idea that people harbor different opinions on varying ideas depending on the generation by revealing the opinions of Mama, Ruth, and Beneatha on the ideas of religion and marriage.

The play opens with the family about to receive an insurance check for $10,000. The check is coming from the deceased Mr. Younger’s life insurance. Since none of the family members have ever had a large sum of money like this before, each one has their own idea of what this money should go to. A reader can indicate in this instance, that the theme to break free of poverty is shown from the Youngers. In the 1950s $10,000 is a lot of money, and each family member has their own thoughts of what this money should go towards such as mother’s idea of buying a new home, Walter wanting to buy a liquor store, or Beneatha wanting to put the money towards her becoming a doctor.

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.

“A Raisin in the Sun” highlights and develops themes of racial intolerance by focusing on three specific expository aspects: the era, ethnicity, and economic status. First of all, the story is set during the 1950’s in Chicago, where the common stereotype depicted African Americans as content, second class citizens. Contrary to this belief, however, many African Americans also chased the American dream, the widespread hope of being financially successful, just as the Youngers did. Yet, while some African Americans surrendered to conformity and assimilation, like George, to become successful, many focused on building from their roots, using pride and tradition to eventually achieve prosperity. Second of all, exposed to racism and prejudice for being African Americans, the Youngers often times find

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is set on Chicago’s south side where many African Americans were struggling to maintain a living, such as the Youngers’ family which was presented in this play. I argue that in the scope of this play, racial identity prevents African Americans from achieving their dreams and elevating in terms of economic success. In the opening scene, Hansberry focused on the living space of the Youngers to show a factor in their lives that left them exhausted. In the act one scene two, Walter explains to Mama that he is socioeconomically barred from business by racism (Hansberry 74).

While Mama is always supportive about her family’s dreams, she never understood the underlying cause of why her family members dreamed of wealth and materialistic objects. Growing up, all she had to worry about was being re-enslaved and lynching. Although Mama had dreams growing up, all of them seemed absolutely obscured considering her circumstances. In the play she recalls, “What you ain't never understood is that I ain't got nothing, don't own nothing, ain't never really wanted nothing that wasn't for you. There ain't nothing as precious to me...

Some people also believe that the play is racial because of when it took place during the pre-civil rights era, when the white race still did not consider the blacks of equal value. When Mama suggests to Ruth to stay home and

Lorraine Hansberry develops the theme that racial discrimination makes it hard to obtain the American Dream through the use of setting. The play takes place in Southside Chicago 1950. During this time the south was segregated by racist Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were laws requiring the separation of whites from persons of color. Many African Americans faced unofficial racial barriers in the North. Black and white communities were even segregated from each other. Black and white communities were very different. Buying a house in a black community was different from buying a house in a white community. Black communities were more expensive and were less well-kept, in contrast to white communities being cheaper, very clean, and well-kept. Linder states, “I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” Linder is trying to say that they are not trying to be racist but clearly are because they are telling the Younger’s that they can not live there because it is an all white community and blacks have their own communities. Linder offers money for the Younger’s to leave just so that they don’t have any blacks in their all white community. Galens states, “Mama Younger has the money to pay for a house she wants, but people attempt to

In A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, the Younger family is trying to achieve the American Dream, which is “the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American”(cite dictionary.com). The Youngers are a black family living in a poor part of Chicago. They inherit ten thousand dollars because Mama’s husband died. Mama is the matriarch of the Younger family. Each family member has their own idea about how to use this money to fulfill their dreams, and the play uses the decisions of the family members and other characters to show the reader that people’s actions are not always motivated by what they appear to be. Mama wants to use the money to buy a house in a white neighborhood, because she thinks it is a better environment for her family than their current living conditions and will benefit her family. Although there are a number of people in A Raisin in the Sun who appear too want to help the Younger family, Mama shows through her decision to buy the house that she is the only person that is looking out for the best interests of her family.