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A Dream In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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I Have A Dream...
The Civil Rights Movement was a time of change and revolution for African Americans. Many songs, poems, books, and plays written during this time period reflected African American’s need for equality and impartiality. They wrote of hopes and dreams, of freedom and acceptance, of respect and love. These ideals are present in the character of Mama from Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play, A Raisin in the Sun. She has dreams and struggles akin to those depicted in poetry written by Langston Hughes and classic Motown songs from the Civil Rights Era.
The progression of Mama’s dreams, the obstacles that stand in front of her, and how she overcomes those obstacles are reflected in the poem “As I Grow Older” by Langston Hughes. …show more content…

Walter’s loss of the money is a wall rising between Mama and her dream of owning her own house; she felt as though she couldn’t go forward. Part of what prevented Mama from ever achieving her dream was the racial discrimination against African-Americans. Mama, and particularly her late husband, felt that the world always stood in front of them on the path to their dreams. They felt the best that they could do was just lie down and hold on to the distant hope of their dream. “As I Grow Older” also tells of this part of the journey: “I am black. / I lie down in the shadow. / No longer the light of my dream before me,” (Hughes 14-16). When a wall rose Mama, despite having been strong for so long, was so tired of fighting for her dream that she just lay down and accepted that it was not possible. Mama also talks about how she was always discouraged from pursuing her dreams in the past: “Just aimed too high all the time,” (Hansberry 140). Mama feels as though her whole life she had bigger dreams, but something always stood in the way of her achieving them. As the poem said, the “light” of her dream appeared to be no longer in front of her. But all of Mama’s hope is not yet lost. The poem ends in

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I Have a Dream’s Rhetoric A momentous day in history is exalted by the enthralling speech and resonating imagery of a man whom wanted to make a difference. Just over 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was implemented, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a very riveting speech to over 250,000 Americans during the March on Washington, the nation’s largest demonstration of peaceful protest. With peace typically comes logic of which King very much emanated from his speech. With powerful rhetoric, King captivated an entire crowd and subsequently the entire nation with emphasizing while being freed from the travesty that was slavery people of color are still placed in chains by society’s gruesome yet commonplace demarcations.

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By comparison, they will do anything to be able to fulfill their American Dream. Without a doubt, Walter would give up anything for wealth, since money runs the world. While Walter was having a conversation with his mother she says, “So now its life. Money. Money is life.

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The role of wealth in both its literal and materialistic meanings plays a vital role in determining the distribution of power and ranking in social status as achievements or incentives of succeeding in the modern world within a highly competitive showdown among several contestants. Walter Younger, son of Lena Younger (Mama), is prominently known in the play for his dream of starting a business and wanting to quickly create a profitable life for himself and his family. He represents the American Dream, whose notion of going from rags-to-riches presents his motivation and his downfall in the play. When Mama gives Walter the rest of the insurance money, he imagines a better future and describes what he sees to Travis. " ...we 'll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you...

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Not even my own mother. " Walter feels betrayed by the family and especially the mother when they don't support his dream for the liquor store and is disappointed with the purchase of a house. He wants their respect and support, but when he doesn't receive it--goes crazy by missing work, dancing "African", and becoming very rude. As the man of the household he feels that all decisions should be made by him and by Mama rejecting his offer, he feels let down by his own family.

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Dreams are a common thing in society that hold and bond people together. Hope is in many aspects of our life as well, and fuel many of the wishes Americans possess. From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's famous “I Have a Dream” speech, to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun play, we find that accomplishing these dreams and goals is something that takes courage or passion. Throughout these two pieces of literature, equality, racism, dreams, and hope are common themes. We can find that real human beings and simple characters share the desire of freedom, and strive for better opportunities in life.

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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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In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry and the speech, “I have a Dream”, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have many similarities to having many dreams, a urge for power, and a want to make a change in the world for the many years to come. In Lorraine’s play, Lena Younger, is a mother who has two children and a step daughter with a kid all living in a two bedroom apartment. Lena wants nothing more than to give her family a better life. In Dr. Martin Luther King speech he wants nothing more than to give the world a better life.

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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.

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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.

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Walter is upset and is trying to cope and make mama understand that him receiving the money from the white man to not to move in will of regain. “Men are expected to be breadwinners, yet providing for one’s family with little or no help has negative repercussions,” said lead author Christin Munsch. Mama was upset that he didn’t listen and that he lived up to the vision of how the whites seen them, Careless and destructive. This is why mama thought it to be all in her hands because Walter as man was distraught and she felt it was a women's jobs because they do everything else. This showed feminism by mama wanting to stay in control and Walter being a man wanting/feeling like he had to be the “breadwinner” because its a mans

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Being the man of the household, Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and plans on using Lena’s money to do so. Walter is always after money and believes that the only way to succeed in life is with money. For example, when Walter is talking about the check, he says, “Mama, sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking about things, turning deals worth millions of dollars, sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (992).This shows how Walter wanted something more out of life and not just be a poor black man. Everyone in this family had dreams but no one supported each other dreams.

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In Susan Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the themes identified are dreams and faith that each character signifies throughout their struggles in their daily lives. The theme dreams refer to how each of the main five characters: Ruth Younger, Walter Lee Younger, Travis Younger, Beneatha Younger, and Lena Younger dealt with different oppression situations that took part in their lives that put the dreams on hold. Furthermore, the theme also connects towards the faith that each main character had to pursue to keep their family together after the death of a love one. The characters’ in A Raisin in the Sun tries to chase after a separate dream, unfortunately their dreams are utterly pushed away to realize the importance of their family

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He feels that if he cannot achieve greatness and get his family out of the slums of Chicago, then he has failed at everything. It not only concerns his family that he sees his human worth out of money, but it worries them because they are not able to trust him to be responsible and just when making decisions. While the Younger family wants to own a house and receive a stronger income, Walter is the only one who obsesses over it and allows it to alter the ways in which he treats important people in his life. Segregation caused dreams to become deferred, and weights were put onto the families during the 1950s. Due to segregation, they could not afford what white families could, and this was because they were paid less in the workforce.

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