Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle” -Napoleon Hill. In the play A Raisin in the Sun, the poem The Negro Mother, and article Innocence in Irrelevant all show struggle. How their lives aren’t all rainbows and butterflies. It shows how you have to make certain sacrifices to protect your family, how some people aren’t accepted like others, and how someone who is struggle should be remembered. Lorraine Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun. The play is about a struggling family who live in a small apartment. Mama, the mother of the family, waits for a $10,000 insurance check from the death of her husband. Later they find themselves unwanted in a white community. Walter, the son of Mama, is one of the main

The poem explains how a mother was sold into slavery. How her children and husbanded were sold away from her. Wanting people to remember what she had experienced. She hopes to pursue happiness by becoming free, then realizing her happiness is through the children. One thing that is important to her is people remembering what she went through. She tells us, “Remeber my sweat, my pain, my despair. Remember my years, heavy with sorrow” [Hughes]. But, during this time period it was hard for them to achieve happiness because they were viewed a less of a person. Instead they were viewed as property. She wants people to remember not just only her but the slaves. THen says, “Remember the whip and the slaver’s track and strife”[Hughes]. America looks back at this horrible time. Remembering what those people did was wrong. Remembering the slaves who stood up to make a different.In A Raisin in the Sun, this poem relates to Walter because he had to work as a chauffeur, driving someone else around all day. Like how the mother had to slave for her owner. Also, when Mr. Linder mistreated him because of the color of Walter’s skin. It relates to The Negro Mother because just like Walter she was mistreated by the white