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Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a play that centers on an African American family’s struggles during the twentieth century. The play illustrates the author’s vital issues such as racial discrimination on colored people, poverty, and gender. However, it can be arguably stated that the play’s success is based on its two major themes (importance of family and significance of the family’s dreams), the main character’s personality, and the author’s standpoint in the story. One of the major themes in A Raisin in the Sun is the importance of family and values, which plays a major role in the unraveling of the story. The Younger’s is a poor African-American family living in Chicago. After receiving a life insurance check because of …show more content…

In some ways, the story of A Raisin in the Sun reflects the story of Lorraine Hansberry's life, who was raised in an African-American household surrounded by a dominant white society. She experienced racism and struggled to reach her dreams. Based on these observations, the readers can infer that one of the purposes for the development of A Raisin in the Sun is to tell the story of a colored family in a time period where clashes between colored and white people were prominent. Throughout Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the author also illustrates the positive and negative effects of pursuing the American Dream. Hansberry expresses her different views on the American Dream through the characters and their daily struggles. That is, Hansberry is able to effectively show the great impact that even small decisions can have on a family. For example, Mama yearns for her family to have a better life. Furthermore, Beneatha aspires to be a successful doctor and an independent woman, whereas Walter desires to invest in a liquor store and provide indulgences for him and his family. It can be determined that each character goes through his/her own struggles and defeats to accomplish the American Dream, but they eventually find their contentment within each other united as a

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Raisin In The Sun Literary Analysis

106 Words | 1 Pages

The play “Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, is a powerful play that displays what it like is to have dreams deferred. Hansberry extracted her title from a well-known poem called “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. “Harlem” serves as an epigraph for the play and Hansberry’s play does an excellent job expressing the poem’s themes. The play provokes feelings of suspense and drama as we watch the character’s endeavors, only to be crushed by the very same thing that they yearn for. My analysis of the play and the poem proves that Hansberry’s play was able to capture and manifest the themes of the poem

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A Raisin In The Sun Analytical Essay

929 Words | 4 Pages

“A Raisin in the Sun” Throughout the generations many different people from all walks of life have battled through the struggles that make them who they are. Even though Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, was written over fifty-five years ago, it still hits strong on the topic of equal rights, and how the struggles of generations can come to define a person. Throughout the play we learn a great deal from the three generations of women in the house and how they have developed their own strong and very different identities. Even though these women have all had major setbacks throughout their lives, they have made the best of their situation and work hard for all that they have.

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Historical Analysis Of A Raisin In The Sun

1427 Words | 6 Pages

Historical Analysis: A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the author’s life. The segregation life and the event of moving into a white neighborhood are events from the life of Lorraine Hansberry, the author. The events that occurred in the play along with real life events relate to the Civil Rights Movement and feminist topics. Lorraine Hansberry moved into an all white neighborhood just like the Younger family moved into Clybourne Park. The author did not modify the major events of her own life but rather added a series of complications and details to fit the play such as the event of Walter losing the investment money.

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Belonging In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

921 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

1616 Words | 7 Pages

In a family there are three characteristics that will help the whole family pursue the American dream. The hard headed one, the calm one, and the wise one. The younger family displays all three types in the book “A Raisin in the Sun”. In pursuit of the “American Dream” the family is needed, as a whole, to get closer to accomplishing the lifestyle and living the American dream.

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A Raisin In The Sun Film Analysis

1601 Words | 7 Pages

“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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A Raisin In The Sun American Dream Essay

699 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

472 Words | 2 Pages

During 1950’s, African-American people faced a lot of challenges here in America. They experienced racism, discrimination etc. These challenges inspired many African-American writers to create poems and stories about it. And one of those is the book, The Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was from a poem by Langston Hughes, Harlem, which is about having a dream but cannot make it happen. Lorraine Hansberry gave highlight to this part of the poem “What happens to a dream deferred?

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Light And Darkness In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

676 Words | 3 Pages

In the book Allegory of the Cave, Socrates was talking with Glaucon and he began to explain how light and darkness are found within the nature of a human. In order to provide a better explanation Socrates created an image. This image was a dark den in which many humans were chained from the hands, feet and neck since they were children. These chains kept these prisoners from moving and allowed them to see only a wall of the den. Behind them there was fire, which was the only source of light in the place.

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Racism In Langston Hughes's A Raisin In The Sun

791 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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A Raisin In The Sun Character Analysis

1178 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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A Raisin In The Sun Character Analysis

882 Words | 4 Pages

The play “ A Raisin In The Sun “ wrote by Lorraine Hansberry is a inspiring play about the Younger family. A typical African American family in the late 1950’s trying to make life better for themselves. They’re a family trying to overcome the difficulties and obstacles that comes with being black in America in that time. Obstacles such as lynchings,segregation,racial discrimination and overall the difficulties that comes with being black in America. With external problems within the family the characters also internal conflicts within themselves.

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Racism In A Raisin In The Sun

873 Words | 4 Pages

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

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Social Issues In A Raisin In The Sun

816 Words | 4 Pages

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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Gender Roles In A Raisin In The Sun

845 Words | 4 Pages

Hansberry portrays the role of fathers within their families through her only male character in the play, Walter Lee Younger. She stresses the fact that the role of fathers is to be a role model for his child. Fathers influence their children significantly especially their sons. Boys will model themselves after their dads since they look at fathers’ behaviors and recognize those behaviors as successful (Gross). As a father, Walter believes that he is not a qualitative role model to his son, Travis Younger.

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