ipl-logo

Racial Discrimination In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

1287 Words6 Pages

Imagine being separated into two lanes on the highway. For one lane, there are speedbumps, red lights, and stop signs that prevent the driver from arriving at their destination in a timely manner. The faster lane allows the driver to get to their destination five times faster than the slower one. Now imagine those speedbumps and stops in the form of restricted housing and racial discrimination. The faster lane only allows white people whereas the slower lane allow the Blacks. Separation of highway lanes illustrates the idea of dreams deferred with redlining. Red lining is racial segregation in terms of housing where the houses sold to African Americans are at a higher price and in a poor neighborhood which receive more taxes than whites. Lorraine …show more content…

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry reflects the dreams deferred Hansberry experienced in her confrontation against racial discrimination during her childhood. As Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun to spread awareness about Black home life and the barriers of buying a home, she integrated many experiences she had during her childhood into the play. When Hansberry was a girl, her family attempted to buy a home in a zone where mostly whites lived in Chicago. Due to redlining, denying an eligible applicant for a loan due to the color of their skin, Blacks were deterred from buying a home in this area. The University of Chicago states, “under the ‘restrictive agreement’, about 500 Chicago property owners agreed that no part of the real estate should be ‘sold, leased to, or permitted to be occupied by any personal of the colored race’” (University of Chicago). As white people produced the restrictive agreement, they proved how Blacks are racially discriminated against in the housing industry. The Hansberrys brought the case to the District Circuit Court, but the court only affirmed the restrictive agreement. Furthermore, the Hansberrys appealed …show more content…

Her family was her prominent inspiration to write the play, and she wants to depict how Black people were mistreated in the 1950s. The Chicago Public Library states in an interview with Hansberry that she “noted similarities between Nannie Hansberry and Mama Younger and between Carl Hansberry and Big Walter. Walter Lee, Jr. and Ruth are composites of Hansberry’s brothers, their wives and her sister, Mamie” (Chicago Public Library). Incorporating personal experiences and truth into the play, Hansberry is able to have a stronger outcry about the mistreatment of Blacks. The characters are relatable to the audience, and it is evident that Hansberry poured her soul into writing this play. Hansberry literally reflected her life which is her nannie, mama, brothers, sisters, and sister-in laws as these characters. The play is not an exact representation of her life, but the play nearly mimics her family and their struggles against redlining and racial discrimination from whites. During an interview, Hansberry exclaims, “Beneatha is me, eight years ago” (Chicago Public Library). Hansberry’s statement proves the connection between Hansberry’s life and A Raisin in the Sun. Beneatha is a reflection of Lorraine Hansberry as Beneatha is the one who seeks education and to rebel against assimilation into the dominant white culture, just like Hansberry. Hansberry pursued her

Show More
Related
629 Words | 3 Pages

A Raisin In the Sun takes place in southside Chicago during the 1950s when segregation was prevalent. The Youngers, a black family, have gone through a recent death of a relative named Big Walter. Mama received $10,000 from his life insurance. Each family member hopes to achieve their dream with this money. In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the author uses brief characters to develop dynamic characters and their actions by showing internal and external racism and how cash alters people.

Read More
625 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry brings in multiple characters for brief periods. Each character impacts the story in his or her own specific way. In Hansberry’s realistic fiction novel, she allows the reader to experience what it is like to live in a time period where African Americans and Whites are not considered equals. She gives in depth scenarios, showing what it is truly like to be an African American in Chicago during the 1950’s. The characters in the story experience a multitude of issues involving society, culture, and family.

Read More
368 Words | 2 Pages

Lorraine Hansberry's drama A Raisin in the Sun takes place in the 1950s on Chicago's South Side. The play illustrates the lifestyle of an African American family dealing with financial troubles. Lena (Mama), her son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, their son Travis, and Lena's daughter Beneatha are the play's key figures. Both the movie and the play displays an excellent picture of life in South Side Chicago, but the movie's representation portrays the authors purpose more accurately. This is due to the film's visual presentation of body language and facial expressions, which provides additional insight into the characters and situations throughout the film.

Read More
1500 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
1127 Words | 5 Pages

Although Walter does not deserve the power, the manhood of Walter Lee enables him to “control” the family. Conversely, Beneatha’s talkativeness and her aggressive personality are against how a 1950s African American should act. Ruth asks “Can’t you be a little sweeter sometimes? (Act 1, Scene 1)” to indicate the modest characteristics women should have. Furthermore, Ruth’s decision of abortion at the beginning of the play was unconventional since it was against gender expectation because it is against her duty as a wife and a mother.

Read More
1686 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
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.

Read More
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.

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
539 Words | 3 Pages

Hansberry’s drama draws on her own experiences growing up in segregated Chicago, for example, redlining was often used in Chicago to discriminate against [colored people] who were moving into new neighborhoods. “Redlining is the practice of denying key services (like home loans and insurance) or increasing their costs for residents in a defined geographical area... It was almost exclusively a tool to force blacks (and other minorities) into particular geographic areas. ”(Jamelle Bouie, How We Built the Ghettos, page 1). This ties to Hansberry’s play, a Raisin in the Sun, by the Younger family lived in a very cramped and poor area.

Read More
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.

Read More
873 Words | 4 Pages

Through the use of the historical lens, looking specifically at the economic struggles, the struggle of unequal opportunity, and the housing covenant that African-American’s faced in the 1950’s, Hansberry’s message of A Raisin in the Sun is revealed: the perseverance of an ethnic minority in a time of racial discrimination. A Raisin in the Sun is set in a time of great racial discrimination, the 1950’s in the united States. This featured racism towards those of color or non-caucasians, and the struggles commonly faced by the African-American family is shown through the eyes of the Younger family through the writing and experiences of Lorraine Hansberry. Of the three major struggles the Younger family faced, the most prominent in Act one is that of financial disability. This is best shown through the working lives of the family.

Read More
825 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
734 Words | 3 Pages

However, a story of Younger’s family struck me completely and challenged my previously held ideas and beliefs toward racial discrimination. Unlike other plays, Lorraine Hansberry’s characters and plots were so believable that I could actually identify with them and understand their situation and emotions in their shoes. As discussed in the class, the characters have similar dreams and obstacles that many of us have in actual life situations. For

Read More
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.

Read More

More about Racial Discrimination In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

Related Topics

Open Document