Struggles, Dreams And Hopes : Lorraine Hansberry 's Play

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun opened in a New York theater March 11, 1951. This play, although based on Hansberry’s own life and personal experiences was also inspired by Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem”. Hansberry used this play to tell the story of a 1950’s African American family trying to better themselves. She also used this play to shine a light on the issue of racism that were prominent during this time frame. This highly successful play “ran for 530 performances and was nominated for the 1960 Tony Award for best play”, and has had several adaptations made in its honor(Aurora). Despite the fact that these adaptations were made to equal the original play there are many differences between them and their predecessor.

Primarily, in A Raisin in the Sun portrays a low-class African American family, living on the Southside of Chicago in the 1950’s. Throughout the play, an opportunity to escape from poverty comes in the form of ten thousand dollars of a life insurance check for the family ( Mrs. Younger, mama ) received upon her husband’s death. Lorraine Hansberry’s play shows the struggles of accomplishing dreams and how racism still exists today.

Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was one of the first plays to realistically and accurately portray the struggles of an African-American family on stage. Before Raisin in the Sun, many black characters on stage were based on stereotypes, not reality. However, Hansberry’s depiction was authentic, even unflattering, and far from comedic. She utilized black vernacular and illustrated the important issues African-Americans faced; poverty, discrimination, segregation. The characters’ authenticity was due to Hansberry basing much of the play on her own life.

Lorraine Hansberry was a distinguished playwright and civil rights activist, with multiple Tony awards and 2 Emmy nominations. Her most famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, is based around the Younger family, an African American family living in poverty on the Chicago South Side that overcomes many hardships and struggles, eventually being able to buy their own house and move out of their cramped apartment. Walter Lee Younger is in his mid-thirties and lives with his mother, sister, wife and son in the apartment. He works as a chauffeur for a rich man and has dreams of one day owning his own liquor store with his buddies. The women in Walter’s life influence him through their thoughts, actions, and values that they give to him.

Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun,” was a radically new representation of black life, resolutely authentic, fiercely unsentimental, and unflinching in its vision of what happens to people whose dreams are constantly deferred.

German-born, American psychologist, Erik Erikson, said, “Life doesn't make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.” Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun (1959), is a story of an African-American family that is struggling with their dreams and the fight to move up socio-economically and the barriers the majority has put in place for them. Lorraine Hansberry reveals one of her themes through the character of Beneatha.

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 faced many obstacles in her life which has made her  write this book A “Raisin in the Sun.” As said in Blooms Literature “She was the youngest of four children whose parents were well-educated, middle-class activists centrally engaged in the fight against racial discrimination. Early figures in the Civil Rights movement.” In the book “A Raisin in the Sun,” the first play written by an African American she made through experiences of  black people who live on Chicago’s South Side, Hansberry used members of her family as inspiration for her characters. Lorraine Hansberry life had comparisons in this book dealing with poverty

In the 1920’s, many African-American families had left the southern states and migrated north to Chicago’s South Side in search of the “American Dream”, dreaming of freedom, equality, and the opportunity that was supposed to be available to every American. This “American Dream” was sought by many African Americans in the U.S. Written by Lorraine Hansberry and produced in 1959, The play: A Raisin in the Sun, gave readers a strong meaning about the values of dreams and the struggles in fulfilling them. Unlike other plays that contain one main character, A Raisin in the Sun consisted of having two main characters: Walter and Mama. The audience may find that one of the main characters from the play,

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.

Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun follows the story of the Younger family over a time period of several weeks, in which great internal and external change quickly occurs for its characters. Throughout the play, readers are able to see the arduous daily lives of the Younger family, as created by the segregated, racist society in which they live. Though no longer slaves like their ancestors, the African-American family is still unable to claim the same level of success as the white community without yielding aspects of their native culture. The accumulation of their struggles weigh heavily on each of the characters and, as the play continues, readers can see characters begin to acknowledge the restrictive social roles they have been placed into. Such confrontation likewise urges the characters to search for meaning in who they are and what they stand for in the face of oppression and segregation. The distinctions between the segregated white and black American communities of the 1950s are placed at the fore-front of the play, with the concept of assimilation taking on a large, necessary role as a great opposing force. By bringing assimilation into focus, A Raisin in the Sun manages to reveal the ____ through the play’s characters and their beliefs, highlighting the specific issues which hinder the Younger family on their journey towards a better life and in their search for identity and belonging.

In Lorraine Hansberry’s work A Raisin in the Sun the struggles of living in a segregated and discriminatory America are examined through the daily struggles of the Younger family. The play is set on the Southside of Chicago sometime between WWII and the 1950’s. The two characters that most develop the plot are Ruth and Mama. They develop the plot because they both have to deal with Walter’s undisciplined

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

In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “A Raisin in the Sun”, the author highlights the relationships between the younger family’s members. She explains how they have contrasting values and ideals that help construct the American Dream. From 1930-1965, African Americans were shaping a future for themselves and their loved ones, and wanted the same respect that Caucasians received. Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” dignifies how race and dreams were affected by oppressive circumstances that were viewed differently by each member of the Younger family, specifically Walter Lee Younger and Lena Younger (Mama). Walter and Mama have different views, beliefs, and philosophies of life.

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.