Raisin In The Sun: Compare And Contrast Essay

The American modernism movement focused on the wrong of society. They focused on what modernists believed to be holding society back from progressing forward. They sought a single, overarching truth; one they presented in their art and writing, one without room for interpretation and with meaning driven directly from the author's purpose. In contrast, post modernism focused on the reader's interpretation of the text. They embraced the many different evaluations and viewpoints people got from a single text. Langston Hughe’s poem “A Dream Deferred” is a poem from the modernist movement that explores the question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (Hughe). Lorraine Hansberry and Maya Angelou both explore this question in Hansberry’s play Raisin

The family finds out that their father left them a large sum of money, and each person has a different idea of what they want to do with this money, all invisoning that the money could help them make their dreams come true (Hansberry). However, this brings adversity as they quarrel about what to do with the money (Hansberry). A majority of the money goes to buying a large house for the family, and the rest of it, lost in an attempt to open up a liquor store for the eldest son (Hansberry). Their new neighborhood, however, was occupied by mainly white people who were displeased by the thought of a black family in their neighborhood, and they threatened the family to move out or face violence (Hansberry). The play ends without the reader finding out what truly happened to the family and leaves them questioning the families fate. Similarly, Maya Angelou wrote a poem about facing adversity. A bird cries out from its place trapped in a cage, and it sings a song that holds out hope that freedom will one day come and let him out of this cage, while also being fearful that the bird has no idea what is to come

In Hughe’s poem, “What Happens to a Dream Deferred?” all of the lines are answers to the question presented in the title, but they’re also all questions. Hughe asks the reader if a deferred dream “stinks like rotten meat?” or does a deferred dream “crust and sugar over- like a sugary sweet?” (Hughe). These questions, although presented in the same poem, leave the reader with vastly different ideas. One suggests that a deferred dream will leave behind unpleasant feelings, it proposes a deferred dream sits and dies and rots. The other question indicates that a deferred dream could lead to good things, pleasant things, that the end of the dream doesn’t mean all hope is lost, and that everything will end okay. No one question presented in this poem is shown to be the absolute truth, Hughe leaves all these questions open in order to show the reader that anything can happen, and a deferred dream can very well end in sorrow, but it can also end in merriness and contentment. Similarly to Hughe, Hansberry’s play leaves off on the same open ended note, leaving the audience in suspense about what is to come. Throughout the play, the audience watches as the family faces adversity after adversity, the audience watches as each character longs to complete their dreams, but we also watch when some of these characters are left dissatisfied with the way their lives have turned