Timeless Themes A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

The play Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is identified as a modernist text for it challenges the life of African-American families living in an industrial environment. Walter and Beneatha’s mother,

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.

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.

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.

Economic and societal poverty are the key forms of poverty highlighted in the three-act play, A Raisin in the Sun. Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright, discusses the hardships of African-Americans attempting to emerge in society in the 1950’s. The play is staged in ways where the audience can grasp the trifles of an African-American family continuously experiencing setbacks whilst attempting to achieve their notion of the “American Dream”. To Walter Lee Younger, his idea of the “American Dream” is that anything is possible for those who have money. Unfortunately, there is a minor problem: Walter Lee Younger is a working-class African-American man who struggles to make ends meet in the Southside of Chicago, Illinois. The family undergoes

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

    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

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.

In the 1950’s African Americans faced many hardships like economic problems and racial discrimination against Caucasians. These problems have left many African Americans working for white people as drivers, maids, or butlers to them making them inferior to the white man. In “The Raisin in the Sun” they face the same trial and tribulations that many African American families were struggling with which were economic hardship and racial discrimination in America. “The Raisin in the Sun” is a play about a struggling family trying to make it into a world where they are inferior to others.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play that displays housing discrimination in Chicago during the 1950s. Housing discrimination was partially an effect of the Great Migration. This was an event during the 1950s that resulted in about six million African Americans “migrating” from the south to the north, Midwest, and west regions of the United States. This caused the population of black people in major northern cities to increase rapidly. They are then only able to live in certain neighborhoods, which keeps their communities segregated.

Throughout many works of literature, characters are described to go through a rite of passage, developing the plot and solving conflicts. A rite of passage is when a character goes through life changes, realizing his/her flaws and maturing as a person. Walter Lee Younger is a man that goes through many different character changes, which cause conflict amongst the other characters. Once he goes through his rite of passage, he is able to fix his flaws and mature. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, characterization is used to portray that one must experience a rite of passage in order to mature.

A Raisin in the Sun was a play written in the late 1950’s analyzing the cruel effects of racism amongst the Younger family. The younger family suffers from racial discrimination within their living space, place of employment, and the housing industry. Racism has been going on for a very long time in the United States and will always continue to exist. Racism has not only led to political but also social issues. "A Raisin in the Sun confronted Whites for an acknowledgement that a black family could be fully human, 'just like us."(qtd. White fear.) The setting took place in the ghetto, south of Chicago where mainly African Americans settled. In this division, apartments and houses were overly priced, crowded and poorly maintained. Crime rates were extremely high and most families lived in poverty. Due to segregated housing, it was a daily struggle for black families who had hopes in leaving the ghetto for better lives.

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 the play A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry, a story about an African American family living in Chicago. The book illustrates what the daily problems of an average black family had to deal with while living in America in the 1950s and their struggle of overcoming obstacles to reach their “dream”. Hansberry use this novel to address topics such as racism, racial inequality, and racial discrimination. In 1954, many people during that time supported segregation. People perceived whites and blacks completely different and people wanted them to be separate. Everywhere in the south had “whites only” or “colored”, and many wanted to keep it that way. History will always repeat itself and people are not

The late 1950s was filled with racial discriminations. There was still sections living as well as public signs of Colored and Whites. Blacks and Whites were not for any change or at least not yet. A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, tells a story of a black family that is struggling to gain a middle class acceptance in Chicago. The family of five, one child and four adults live in a tiny apartment that is located in a very poor area. Dreams of owning a business and having money to accomplish goals is two key parts played out throughout the whole play. Walter Younger is determined to have his own business and he will go to ends met to see that dream come true. Financial bridges are crossed and obstacles arise when Walter