Lorraine Hansberry, the author of Raisin in the Sun, simulates the title of her play from the famous line in the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, in which the poet asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?” A dream deferred is a vision that someone has, but due to certain circumstances, their fantasy life is either ignored or put on hold. For the Younger family, their dream of living as an ordinary middle-class black family and being accepted by the whites was deferred at one point. At the time the story took place, the blacks in the Chicago area still faced racism just like the south. The dream of the Younger family was very essential to each of them. They were willing to do literally anything to make their dreams come true. A Raisin in …show more content…
The family was devastated because they knew their dreams of living a better lifestyle would not come true. After contemplating for a few days, the family still decides to go through with their plans of moving to the new home despite of loss of the money. Lena Younger played the role as the chief of the Younger family. Lena was a loving wife and affectionate mother. She was very religious hard-working woman who only wanted the best for her children. Throughout the play, Lena would continuously struggle to relate to her children. Lena would become disappointed with her children’s ways of thinking, but because she was their mother she had no choice but to love them unconditionally and understand their feelings. Lena’s dream for the Younger family was for the family to move up in the world. She wanted her family to no longer live the life of a low-class family. For many years Lena and her family struggled living in a very small house, but with the money she received from her husband’s death, she knew she had to do something special for her family. To show her appreciation, Lena put her dream in effect and used some of the money to buy a house located in a white neighborhood. Walter Lee Younger was the biggest visionary out of the Younger family. Working as a chauffeur for a white man, Walter was becoming displeased with
“A Raisin in the Sun” and "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)," written by Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes, respectively, represent the complimentary themes of dreams. “A Raisin in the Sun” depicts a family’s struggle for survival. The Younger family who lives in Southside, Chicago, fights for their civil rights during the 1960’s. They each have dreams and goals. Hughes illustrates, in “Harlem” that sometimes dreams dry up like raisins in the sun. Two stories analytically provide unexpected irony at the end. Jason Miller’s article, “Foreground and Prereading,” references these pieces to illustrate ideas and obstacles in the character’s lives – defining how obstacles strengthen the family’s perseverance while demonstrating how dreams and hopes can be deferred but are not soon forgotten.
The American dream has been visualized and pursued by nearly everyone in this nation. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the Younger family that strived for the American dream. The members of the Younger family shared a dream of a better tomorrow. In order to reach that dream, however, they each took different routes, which typified the routes taken by different black Americans.
In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, and 1961 movie written by Lorraine Hansberry and presented by Columbia pictures, one of the most important themes is the American Dream. Many of the characters have hopes and dreams. They all strive towards their goals throughout. However, many of the characters have different dreams that clash with each other. Problems seem to arise when different people’s dreams conflict with one another. Another theme is racism. Racism was rampant during the 1950’s and this often hindered African American dreams.
“What happens to a dream deferred?” (Hughes l. 1) Langston Hughes asks in his 1959 poem “Dream Deferred.” He suggests that it might “dry up like a raisin in the sun” (Hughes ll. 2-3) or “stink like rotten meat” (Hughes l. 6); however, at the end of the poem, Hughes offers another alternative by asking, “Or does it explode?” (Hughes l. 11) This is the view Lorraine Hansberry supports in her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, in witch she examines an African-American’s family’s struggle to break out of the poverty that is preventing them from achieving some sort of financial stability, or the American Dream. It focuses on Walter’s attempt in “making it,” or “being somebody.” She also analyzes how race, prejudice, and economic insecurity
In Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” he discusses the idea of unfulfilled dreams and their plausible outcomes using symbolism and imagery. He initially describes a “deferred” dream as a sun-dried raisin, depicting the dream originally as a fresh grape that now has dried up and “turned black” (Jemie 63). This idea provides Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun with its basic foundation, for it is a play about a house full of unfulfilled dreams. As the poem goes on, Hughes depicts the idea of a deferred dream as something rotten or gone bad. According to Onwuchekwa Jemie, this may be an allusion to the American Dream and its empty promises (Jemie 64).
In Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, the author reveals a hard-working, honest African-American family struggling to make their dreams come true. Langston Hughes' poem, Harlem, illustrates what could happen if those dreams never came to fruition. Together, both Hansberry and Hughes show the effects on human beings when a long-awaited dream is thwarted by economic and social hardships.
His closing rhetorical question – “Or does [a dream deferred] explode?” – is incendiary, a bold statement that the suppression of black dreams might result in an eruption. It implicitly places the blame for this possible eruption on the oppressive society that forces the dream to be deferred. Hansberry’s reference to Hughes’ poem in her play’s title highlights the importance of dreams in A RAISIN IN THE SUN and the struggle that her characters faced to realize their individual dreams, a struggle inextricably tied to the more fundamental black dream of equality in America. These dreams functioned in positive ways, by lifting their minds from their hard work and tough lifestyle, and in negative ways, by creating in them even more dissatisfaction with their present situation. For the most part, however, the negative dreams come from placing emphasis on materialistic goals rather than on familial pride and happiness. Therefore, while the Youngers shared a common dream of having a better life, each family member had their own dream in obtaining it. Unfortunately, their dreams had been deferred for so long that their frustration almost succeeds in destroying the ultimate dream. This frustration is best summed up when Beneatha, who has lost faith in her brother, says, "Well, we are dead now. All the talk about dreams and sunlight that goes on in this house. It's
It could likewise be illustrated as a discriminating defining moment in her vocation as an essayist and additionally in America on the grounds that her play addresses such a large number of vital issues that were going ahead in America around then. Additionally the title of this play was taken out of one of Langston Hughes' celebrated lyric called "Harlem: A Dream Deferred" which in his time offered inspiration to the various African American journalists out there. His lyric shows the blessing, inventiveness, and society of the dark group and how they are as equivalent as white individuals. This title is critical in light of the fact that like a raisin in the sun, their dreams go away, they spoil like meat and rot like flies. They go away like a raisin in the sun on the grounds that they all have these particular dreams and they all need to attain these objectives yet they all realize that the likelihood they had always wanted really working out as expected are extremely thin on account of their race and their absence of riches. What might happen on the off chance that you cleared out a raisin in the sun for some time? It would in the long run go away and shrivel away, which is the way the longs for the characters in this play are similar to in view of the neediness they are in and the absence of cash they need to use on the dreams that they need to materialize. In any case at last they
There are conflicts in the play especially between the siblings. Who has more rights to fulfill their personal dreams, which deserves their dream to come true sooner? Mama Lena is facing these difficult decisions. Making the right decision is hard for her because she wants to make it right for everyone and wants no one to be hurt by a wrong decision. Incidentally, the play tells the story of a family which members diligently pursue work which has not paid much, especially in the environment of racial intolerance. The story of Lena’s daughter, who is still looking after herself, is, therefore, more volatile. And her son of Walter Lee, who soon abandons himself because he wants more from his life,
Eventually, she met Langston Hughes. Hughes was a popular poet and his poem “Dream Deferred” became the inspiration for Hansberry’s most famous play Raisin In the Sun. The play has been put on broadway numerous times and is performed worldwide. Raisin In the Sun answers Hughes question in one of his most famous poems “what happens to a dream deferred?” in Raisin in the Sun by taking the audience through the Younger family's
The title of the play itself, A Raisin in the Sun, directly references the poem Harlem written by Langston Hughes. Written in 1951, the poem targets one of the most common themes of that time period: the limitations of the American Dream for African Americans. In the poem, Hughes wonders if a “dream deferred” dries up “like a raisin in the sun” (Hughes 1). In other words, Hughes wants to know whether or not delaying dream will make the dream lose its “juice.” Hansberry alludes to the poem to explore the same notion Harlem addresses through Walter Lee Younger, a black man whose struggles throughout the play to achieve his dream. Walter is, by definition, a dreamer. He dreams of being wealthy, he dreams of being important, and he dreams of being a leader, but his goals are often deferred as a result of racial inequalities. However, one dream at the end of the play is fulfilled: the Younger family moving into Clybourne Park. The Youngers defy the societal norm of the time. Instead of backing down when Lindner tries to prevent them from moving, the Younger family fights back. Critics, when evaluating the ending of A Raisin in the Sun, compare the “explosive ending” of the poem to the “unexpectedly happy ending” of the play (Gill 1). Upon hearing the word “explosive,” a negative connotation is created because the word is often used to describe a dangerous weapon. However, it juxtaposes the
Many questions can be asked about the opening line of Harlem, but no one knows the true answer. Hughes posed the question “What happens to a dream deferred?” (377) to open his poem. This question makes a bold statement about the dreams of African Americans during the early 1950’s. Due to most of America still being racially segregated and African Americans still being associated with slavery, it was more difficult for an African American to live the American Dream. In A Raisin in the Sun, Lena Younger was expecting an insurance check from when her husband died. This check made all the dreams of the characters seem as though they could finally be achievable.
A dream is what a person strive for to achieve success in their lives. Langston Hughes, ask in Montage of a Dream Deferred, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the Sun?” A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry is mainly about a family dream to do better for themselves. All the characters in this story has hopes and dreams. The problem with that is that everyone has their own individual dream which cause conflict within the family. The family is also dealing with racism and poverty. The family status in society, class, and poverty issues are all because of race. The family is also prideful although they have negative around them they stand for a difference in their lives. You will see how the -different family member show pride in this drama.
Lorraine Hansberry was one of the most poetic voices in American theatre. She was a playwright and an activist who wrote the incredibly successful play, A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Throughout her short life she was deeply involved in civil rights. She was the first African American playwright and the youngest American to win the New York Critics’ Circle award. Raisin in the Sun was the first of many that she envisioned challenging the limits of American political discourse in the postwar period. Hansberry represented the life, experiences and dreams of the African America working class in the 1950’s. In the Oxford American Dictionary, ‘American Dream’ is defined as, “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” Realistically everyone’s definition of the American Dream is different, but they all have one thing in common which is to live a better and easier life. The poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes starts off by saying, “What happens to a dream deferred?” is this question is exemplifying the black experience of the American Dream. Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” Hansberry answered this question by “fashioning a playa bout the struggle and frustrations of a working-class black family living in Chicago’s south side ghetto during the 1950’s.” (Wilkerson, Margaret). This is how the title “A Raisin
A Raisin In The Sun tells the story of a black family living in a segregated and oppressive Chicago sometime between World War 2 and now. This play introduces us to characters such as Lena, Walter (Lena’s son), Beneatha (Lena’s daughter), Ruth (Walter’s wife) and Travis (Walter’s and Ruth’s son). These characters form the Younger family. In the beginning of the play, the members of the Younger household are excited because they are about to receive $10,000 in insurance money since the father passed away. As the insurance money from her husband’s death belongs to Lena, she has to decide what to do with it. Lena struggles with deciding what to do