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A Raisin In The Sun Response Research Paper

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Recommended: Theme of racism in à raisin in the sun

For the third response paper, I chose to read and analyzing the play A Raisin in the Sun. This play was written by Lorraine Hansberry, the first black woman to write a play performed on Broadway. The play addresses the stories and struggle of a black family, the Youngers, who move into an all white neighborhood in Washington Park, a subdivision of Chicago's Woodland neighborhood. As the play progresses, we see the characters struggling with their own personal issues and dreams, as wells as how complicated it was being a black individual in segregated America during the 1950s. The playwright addresses many themes in this play, however, the predominant theme of the play is how African Americans had to fight racial discrimination. Furthermore, …show more content…

He explains that their house was built brick by brick out of something they owned and that they will try to be good neighbors so the money Mr. Lidner has to offer them will, in other words, the money the Association had to offer them not to move in will be no good because money can not buy peace of mind, or their rights in this matter. Moreover with the topic of being family oriented, we see the characters becoming more and more united throughout the play. At first, each family member had their own dream, and their own aspiration individually. Walter wants to invest their money on a liquor store, while Beneatha wants to use the money to pay for her education for example. As the story unfolds and certain things don’t go as planned, we see the importance of not giving up on your dreams and staying strong as a individual. More importantly though, we see all these individuals come together to over fight something greater, which was racial discrimination, and tighten their family bond. All in all, A Raisin in the Sun is not only a beautifully written play, it was also a groundbreaking piece for African Americans. Not only it was the first play performed on Broadway by a black woman, it also captured accurately the harsh insight of what it was like to be discriminated because of ones racial group during

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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.

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In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, take place in the late 1950s in Chicago Illinois the younger experiences the struggles of living during the Jim Crow era. African American families have always struggled to find their place within a white society. Throughout the play the audience sees the differences between the three generations through Mama, Walter and Beneatha. Ruth, Walter’s wife, acts as a stabilizing force in the family who acts as a peacemaker and caretaker within the family.

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A Raisin in the Sun The A Raisin in the Sun is a story that reflects how lower-class black family struggles to acquire middle-class recognition in the society. In this regard, Younger's family lived in an apartment the suburbs of Chicago where many blacks lived in 1950's. During this period, race discrimination was a significant issue in the area. Throughout the play, there arise generational conflicts concerning idea and perception between mother and her children that help depict personality of characters. In this regard, Younger's family consists of three generations: Lena, also known as Mama or grandmother, is about sixty years and has a lot of responsibilities as a family leader and represent the first generation.

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Lorraine Hansberry Broadway play A Raisin In The Sun illustrates how African American families struggled throughout life for justice and civil rights. Hansberry being an African American, was underrated an extraordinary writer. Many decades have passed and changed has occurred regarding race and discrimination. However in Today’s society we continue to face and see discrimination still takes place with injustice for African Americans and other minorities. Dreams and aspirations is what keeps the Younger family motivated regardless of race and injustice.

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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.

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A Raisin in the Sun: A Literary Analysis Throughout the fifties, African-Americans constantly faced with impertinence due to normalized racism in society. A Raisin in the Sun, a renowned play written by Lorraine Hansberry, perfectly demonstrates what racial prejudice was like in the fifties. The play revolves around a poverty-stricken African-American family growing up in Chicago, and all the obstacles they must overcome to survive. By using Mama’s plant to symbolize the state of their family and irony to create both humor and drama, Hansberry creates a beautifully vivid story that touches everyone who reads it.

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“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.

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Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, derived from “Harlem,” a poem written by Langston Hughes. Both the play and poem explore the theme of deferred dreams. A raisin symbolizes one’s dreams, while the sun represents time; as more time is spent in the sun, the longer the dream is deferred. The theme signifies that not everyone is able to accomplish their version of the American Dream. Also, feminism is a key theme exhibited through the women of the Younger family.

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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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The Civil Rights Movement was a time in the 1900’s where there were different stories to every African American that walked across “the land of the free” and in those stories, a chance of hope and change that lived in every single one of the their stories. Lorraine Hansberry gives the people an understanding of a certain African-American family struggled living in a time where discrimination and racism was intensely common, she also was inspired by her own personal life experiences and what she faced growing up in that time period to make this story. The story tells of a black family's experiences who are at crossroads to "better" themselves with an insurance payout following the death of the father and how each family member shows ambiguity to certain situations. The family comes to a constant struggle on what to do with money as they face the battle of having few options due to the society they live in facing the battle to overcome racism and discrimination. A raisin in the sun covers a good amount of ground when it comes to the topic of racism.

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Possibly the most important production of the postwar era was A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. It was about a black family in Chicago, held together by a God-fearing mother, who is planning to move into a predominantly white neighborhood where the family will be unwelcome. From 1960 to the 1990s, there was an outpouring of African American theatre, much of it reflecting the struggle for civil rights. In 1970 the black theater alliance listed

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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.

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A Raisin in the sun takes place during the 1950’s and early 1960s. It was during the time when discrimination against blacks was very well known and blacks mainly lived in poverty The genre is a play and takes place in chicago’s south side. It 's important to the narrator mainly because she was writing about her own experiences and was giving people a perspective of how others lived during that time period she was trying to question people 's minds and hearts of the way America was allowing how people were being treated and how hard it was survive through that but how easy it was for white people.

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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.

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