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Literary essay on the movie a raisin in the sun
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Gender issues in a raisin in the sun
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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.
A Raisin in the Sun is an inspirational book/play that tells the overcoming story of an African-American family Going through the terrible struggles of Chicago in the 1950’s. Greg Kincaid once said “No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear.”. This explains Beneatha younger, a young woman who tries to find herself while dealing with others scrutinizing and being treated like a child in her family. In conclusion, Beneatha younger is an overpowering character that is shaping her life through independence, an education, and growing closer to her
In the play “A Raisin in the Sun,” the family explores many issues, both within their family and with outside conflicts. This play has a historical feel to it. In Chicago 's south side a black family is living in a run-down apartment. It takes the readers back to a time that many young people don’t know of, and a time that offers respect to older generations (1959). The play takes on a few social reforms.
In the play Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry takes place on the southside of Chicago where Walter and his family are racially profiled and show us how the survive throughout their struggles. The central struggles for the younger family in their search for the American dream is mostly poverty and being racially profiled against for their actions. Hansberry challenges the traditional gender roles and issues of dominance throughout the play when Mama gives Walter lee the rest of the money at the end of the play. He becomes all excited and was supposed to save some for himself and put the rest of the money to Beneatha 's education. Instead, he gave all that money to Willy another character in the play which later on that he stole from him.
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun follows the struggles of an African American family living in a neighborhood in 1950s South Side Chicago. The play discusses several issues pertaining to African Americans of the time, such as poverty and discrimination. One of the major themes of the story is the search for a sense of belonging; whether that’s a sense of belonging to the continent of Africa, a neighborhood in Chicago, or on a personal level within the Younger family. The play explores this theme through its characters Beneatha, Mama and Walter.
The 1950s were oppressive and degrading towards the culture and identity of African Americans. This principle is especially personified through the drama, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. As a black female author in this time period, she was easily able to capture the racism and forced stereotypes poignant within the lives of the minorities. Beneatha, a fictional character in the play, represents the ambitious and suppressed black female intellectual who is stripped of her identity at every turn. The men in her life are as different as black and white, and in essence that is what they are.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
The setting of the Raisin in the Sun is the ghetto of Chicago, where most black families lived and most of these black families had dreams of moving to a better neighbourhood, because of crime, but the housing industry causes segregated housing and manipulates communities with white fears of black integration. When Lorraine Hansberry was a child, her family also experienced the results of a government unconcerned with blacks leaving segregation. Lorraine used her play to tell people about her own struggle with racism, her play shows us that her problems were handled with determination. Linder speaks to the Younger family and offers them money to buy their house, because they, the white people feel that a community should share a common background and that negro families are happier when they live in their own communities. This is an example of how the Younger family has experienced racism, while it is true that people with the same background will be happier together, it is also their right to live where they feel they are progressing.
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.
A Raisin in the Sun "Education has spoiled many a good plow hand" (Hansberry 103). This quote is significant because it is applying that education is better than being a hard-worker. A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, is taken place in South Side, Chicago between World War II and the present. The main focus of this play is about a poor African-American family who has a chance to escape this lifestyle with a ten-thousand-dollar life insurance check, but is not desired to live in a "white" neighborhood.
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun presents the rise of feminism in America in the 1960s. Beneatha Younger, Lena Younger (Mama) and Ruth Younger are the three primary characters displaying evidences of feminism in the play. Moreover, Hansberry creates male characters who demonstrate oppressive attitudes towards women yet enhance the feministic ideology in the play. A Raisin in the Sun is feminist because, with the feminist notions displayed in the play, women can fulfil their individual dreams that are not in sync with traditional conventions of that time.
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.
