Through the use of the historical lens, looking specifically at the economic struggles, the struggle of unequal opportunity, and the housing covenant that African-American’s faced in the 1950’s, Hansberry’s message of A Raisin in the Sun is revealed: the perseverance of an ethnic minority in a time of racial discrimination. A Raisin in the Sun is set in a time of great racial discrimination, the 1950’s in the united States. This featured racism towards those of color or non-caucasians, and the struggles commonly faced by the African-American family is shown through the eyes of the Younger family through the writing and experiences of Lorraine Hansberry.
Of the three major struggles the Younger family faced, the most prominent in Act one is that of financial disability. This is best shown through the working lives of the family. Out of a family of five, three people work: Walter Lee as a chauffeur to a wealthy white family, Ruth as a housemaid, and Mama as a nanny to other peoples children. This is clearly necessary to afford basic needs as shown in their apartment, with “weariness [having], in fact won” (Hansberry pg.23). It is clear in Hansberry’s characterization that the members of the Younger family are dissatisfied with their station in life, albeit to varying degrees; Walter Lee in particular is very vocal regarding their poverty, as he states at one point: “I got boy who sleeps in the living room- and all I got to tell him is stories about how rich white people
Racism is a problem that people of every race around the world still faces today. In the film adaptation of The Help and the text version of Lorraine Hansberry's “A Raisin in The Sun”, racial discrimination is a major theme explored. Racial discrimination is a major theme that both sources portray. There are laws that make discrimination illegal in The United States but it people still suffer from it, however, The Help and “A Raisin if The Sun” portray more ways in which this problem can be eliminated through resistance, getting support from the oppressors, and showing the intimidators their behaviors and attitudes.
The play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry debuted on Broadway in 1959, and the movie was made in 2008. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about the Younger family, the fifth generation of lower-class African-Americans living in Chicago’s Southside. They are faced with problems such as racial discrimination, poverty, and conflicting dreams. As the family decides on how to spend the insurance check of $10,000 from Walter’s father’s death, these problems cause many conflicts to rise. Reading the 1959 play and the 2008 movie, I have realized certain similarities and differences in how the story plays out.
This shows the family such as Mama and Ruth that they can’t trust Walter with anything now because he lost all of the portion of the money. He is looked down upon for not becoming the “Man” of the house and taking full responsibility when he is supposed to. Another traditional gender role that I see Hansberry challenging is Beneatha in the middle of the book. Beneatha explains how she has started taking guitar lessons Mama and Ruth laugh out loud making fun of her and asking why she wants to play the guitar. All of sudden she gets upset when Mama and Ruth don’t take it seriously “How come you done taken it in your mind to learn to play the guitar?”
Many of the African Americans in the play are fighting for equal rights and against injustice. Even women held their own part, gaining their own equality. The play set a time of simple oppositions and an eager, personal justice system. Hansberry’s, “A Raisin in the Sun” does a good job at pointing out all of society’s flaws at the time.
The Younger family, is a family who are honest and who also work hard for what they want, just because they are black, does not mean that they don 't deserve to live in a better neighbourhood. However, racism also impacted the Younger family beneficially in the way Walter rejected Linders’s offer at the end of the play. The example of racism gives Walter the opportunity to become the man he always wanter to
“A Raisin in the Sun,” written by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, was the first play ever produced on Broadway by an African-American woman and was considered ground-breaking for it’s time. Titled after Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” sometimes known as “A Dream Deferred,” the play and the subsequent film adaptations are honest examinations of race, family, poverty, discrimination, oppression and even abortion in urban Chicago after WWII. The original play was met with critical praise, including a review by Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times where he wrote, “For A Raisin in the Sun is a play about human beings who want, on the one hand, to preserve their family pride and, on the other hand, to break out of the poverty that seems to be their fate. Not having any axe to grind, Miss Hansberry has a wide range of topics to write about-some of them hilarious, some of them painful in the extreme.” The original screen adaptation released in 1961 was highly acclaimed in its own right, and was chosen in 2005 for preservation in the United States of America National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its cultural and historical significance.
A Raisin in the Sun was an innovative play for its era. Lorraine Hansberry produces in the Younger household one of the first authentic portrayals of a black household on an American stage, in an era where primarily black spectators just didn’t exist. African-American characters, typically minor and comedic, mostly hired racial stereotypes before this play. Lorraine Hansberry, nevertheless, displays a whole black household in an authentic view, one that is unbecoming and anything but comedic. She makes use of black dialect all through the play and raises significant concerns and struggles, for instance poverty, bigotry and racism.
It won’t let him get a good job or house, be able to have a car, or allow him to live the way he wants to live. Because of all these stressors, it forces Walter to make a risky business decision that costs him most of his father’s life insurance money. Racism caused Walter to risk every dollar he owned and he lost it all. Later, he almost lost his own dignity by pleading with Mr. Lindner for his money back, but Mama saved him from doing it. Walter and the Youngers decided to move to Clybourne Park to live Walter’s dream of trying to live with the same privileges of white people.
In A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, the audience was able to obtain a sense of the struggle for the American dream. We are introduced to the Youngerś a black family living in the Southside of Chicago around the 1950’s. Each member of this family has their own meaning to what is the American dream. A Raisin in the Sun teaches us that even though life might be full of conflicts, it is important to not give up on our dreams.
Genevieve Mahoney Mr. Mischinski English 10 - American Studies 2 March 2018 A Raisin in the Sun: An Analysis of The Kismet of Dreams Deferred “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry details the Youngers, a zealous black family, struggling to make their dreams come true in the slums of Chicago. Langston Hughes’ poem, "A Dream Deferred
If possible, the parents try to work more than one job to get a little extra cash. In the play, Ruth and Walter were the only ones working;
A Raisin in the Sun addresses major social issues such as racism and feminism which were common in the twentieth century. The author, Lorraine Hansberry, was the first playwright to produce a play that portrayed problematic social issues. Racism and gender equality are heavily addressed throughout the play. Even though we still have these issues today, in the 1950’s and 60’s the issues had a greater part in society. Racism and gender have always been an issue in society, A Raisin in the Sun is an important piece of American history during that time period.
As a civil rights activist, Stokely Carmichael once said, “We are told,” If you work hard, you’ll succeed”- but if that were true, black people would own the country. We are oppressed because we are black- not because we are ignorant, not because we are lazy, not because we are stupid, but because we are black!” This quote is still relevant even to this day, blacks are still considered a minority and they get treated differently simply because of the color of their skin. People continue to treat others by the color of their skin rather than their character. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the interaction between the themes of race and dreams demonstrates that your race can affect the dreams that you have and what you choose to do about it.
Believe it or not, many people are involved in racial and class division conflicts. Lately, both have become a problem in everyday life. Whether it's who has the most money, best job, better skin color, or even who clothes look the best, it's all labeled as “division.” A Raisin in the Sun is a prime proposition of class division between the races of American society in the nineteen-fifties. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the family in seen as lower class and broke based on their location.
Just within the recent decades, men and women started to fight against the gender stereotypes and started to challenge their roles in a family and in the society. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, portrays the lives of African–Americans during the 1950s. Lorraine Hansberry, a writer and a social activist, reinforced the traditional gender roles, especially female’s, by depicting how the Youngers interact and how they act in an economical struggle. Throughout the play, A Raisin in the Sun, she uses Walter Lee Younger, Ruth Younger and Lena Younger to reinforce the traditional role of fathers, wives and mothers within a family.