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A Raisin In The Sun: An Analysis

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The American dream means something different to each one of the Youngers in the play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” written by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The characters in the story all have their own set of issues and dreams. The relationship between each of the Younger’s greatly influences each of their decisions. When a check for ten thousand dollars comes in the mail, the Younger’s world changes and they all learn what it really means to be a family.
Lena Younger’s, known as “Mama”, dream was to have a happy and healthy family. Her goal was to buy a bigger house for her growing family to help better their future with the check for ten thousand dollars that came in the mail after the death of her husband. In an article titled, “The Historical Problem of Generations.”, Karl Mannheim proposed the idea that a continual production of a new generation is inertly problematic for the transmission of a prevailing culture. Mama doesn’t understand what the big deal is with …show more content…

This section helps depict the generation gap between Mama and Walter and how the “American Dream” evolves over time. At the end of the play, Mama walks into the living room and grabs her plant. The plant symbolizes her family. She knows that the plant never gets enough water or light but she continuously cares for it. This is the same for her family. Even though her family is not in the best environment, she still takes care of them. Her dreams for a bigger home is the same as her desire to have a garden. Her persistence to take care of her plant is a very symbolic to how she love and wants to care of her family. Mama always has a optimistic view and hopes that if she continuous to take care of her plant even though the circumstances, that everything will turn out fine for the greater

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During the 1950s in Chicago blacks were in poverty. The city was filled with discrimination, racism and segregation. The Younger family was a black family living in a one bedroom apartment in Chicago at the time. They had big dreams but lack of money. In the play, A raisin in the sun, Lorraine Hansberry created the central idea of “feeling trapped” in the character Mama through the setting, symbolism, and figurative language.

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1449 Words | 6 Pages

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.

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366 Words | 2 Pages

• The first picture regards to the long-time deferral of the Younger family’s dreams. Prejudice defers Mama’s dream to raise her family in a house of her own. The quote is a quote from the poem “Harlem” that describes Mama’s withered dream. I thought a picture of a raisin and a grape would best illustrate this, but I ate all of the grapes, which deferred my dream.

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1105 Words | 5 Pages

She tells the story numerous times that she never planned on residing in the apartment for a long period of time, but intended on moving to a big house with a garden in the back (Act I, Scene I, 16). Through time, her dream deferred as many other things came up and her plant is as close as she ever had to a garden. Other than her own dreams, Mama knew that dreams were important to her family as well and the plant partly symbolized the hope that their dreams will never differ as hers had. There will always be hope for the family as long as the dreams, as well as the plant, stay alive and

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2234 Words | 9 Pages

This advanced in a number of ways as she persuaded Gerta to join the pioneers and developed into a model citizen for the neighborhood. The text states “Mama carefully made sure we did everything that might be expected of a good East German family. ”(Nielsen 21). Moreover, as Gerta recelects on her mothers actions, readers realize that Mama will do everything in her power to stay out of trouble. This is the reason Mama had put Gerta in the pioneers and the reason she gets angry whenever Gerta is unnecessarily reckless.

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934 Words | 4 Pages

The Deferred Dreams of the !950’s In Lorraine Hansberry 's play, A Raisin in the Sun, the characters of Mama, Walter, and Beneatha face several obstacles and hardships that refrain the characters from being able to accomplish their dreams. They are faced with issues such as gender stereotyping, discriminatory housing , and racial prejudice. All of which lead to their deferred dreams. Throughout the story, the reader is given a visual of how all of these issues are relevant and how they affect each character.

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451 Words | 2 Pages

In the play, Hansberry uses many ways to show growing and watering. Every day, Ruth makes breakfast for her family, as Mama waters her plant. After breakfast, everyone leaves to go and do their daily routines and at the end of the day everyone returns. As the plant grows, the more the stems droop, so Mama brings them back together and ties them with string to keep them strong. Mama cares for her family every day, as she does for her plant.

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1695 Words | 7 Pages

Her vision is purchasing a home for the family with the ten thousand dollars she has gained from the life insurance that her husband had subscribed. Mama “emanated from five generation of individuals who were share-croppers and slaves that showed her to have pride in her family and herself. She grew in a generation where the male genre made the choices for their families and the wife supported anything that choice was. Shasta Gaughen states that all that changed during the closure of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s when women commenced leaving their homes and assuming on other functions other than just being a homemaker (Gaughen, Shasta., 2003). Mama was raised in a

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1127 Words | 5 Pages

Hardships of the Youngers In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters of Mama, Walter ,and Beneatha are faced with hardships associated with their dreams being destroyed by discriminatory housing,racial inequality and lack of support from her family towards her education. In the play all the characters have some kind of dream. Mama wants to get a house for the family, Walter wants to have money to provide for his family and plans to do that with a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to become a doctor. Beneatha is going to school and at the same time she’s trying to discover herself,but her family is not supportive of this.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

Reader Response: 3 “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, is a play about a black families experience in 1950s South Side Chicago. The story revolves around what happens to the family when Lena Younger, the matriarch of the family, receives a ten thousand dollar life insurance check upon the death of her husband. Everyone from the family has different plans for what they want to do with the money. Lena Younger serves as the head of the family. She is Walter and Beneatha’s caring mother so they and Ruth call her Mama.

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963 Words | 4 Pages

Family is important to everyone in some way because family sticks together no matter what. The play A Raisin in the Sun is about a black family named the Youngers and the hardships they face together as a family. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Ruth Younger is motivated by her family. This is shown by Ruth wanting to make her family happy, her working even though she is tired, and later when Ruth finds out there is going to be another mouth to feed. Ruth Younger is constantly worrying about her family’s well being and happiness for them.

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1467 Words | 6 Pages

Their buildings were made to where they did not get much sunlight like they wanted. The Youngers felt as if they were colored, they were living in a dark place, and the whites had all the sunshine and happiness. The Youngers house was dim, which the image of no sunlight and dim lights makes people depressed. The sunlight was hope for the plant, the plant was not getting enough sunlight which made it feeble. The connection to the Youngers struggling and the house with no sunlight lead to the plant struggling too, which is why the plant is so important to Mama.

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809 Words | 4 Pages

A Raisin in the Sun Money is one of the things in the world that a person can become obsessed with. In the story “A Raisin in the sun” the author Lorraine Hansberry shows how a family is changed by the lust of money. A widow, Lena, her son Walter Younger, his wife Ruth and daughter Beneatha all lived under the same roof. Lena just lost her husband and is receiving a check for his death. With the money, Lena wants to buy a new house for the whole family to live in but everyone else in the family sees a different type of opportunity.

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793 Words | 4 Pages

In the drama, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry the plant symbolizes the Younger’s dream as it evolves throughout the play. Meanwhile in southside Chicago dreams are either being crushed or pursued. The Youngers family are always facing society as they live in poverty. A family with such big dreams believes the only way for these dreams to come true is money. Mama received her husband's life insurance which was 10,000 dollars.

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466 Words | 2 Pages

In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Loraine Hansberry, both Walter and Mama have great dreams and encounter barriers on the path to achieving their dreams. Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and being able to better provide for his family, a dream that changes when he faces the barrier of his money being stolen by Willy Harris. Mama dreams of living in a real house with a garden and also encounters barrier of her money being stolen by Willy Harris. Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and being able to financially support his family. Walter’s dream is shown in act 1, scene 1 when he explains to Ruth how the liquor store he and his friends are buying will help their family have enough money to do more than just make ends meet (32,33).

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