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Raisin In The Sun Figurative Language

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A Raisin in the Sun: A Literary Analysis Throughout the fifties, African-Americans constantly faced with impertinence due to normalized racism in society. A Raisin in the Sun, a renowned play written by Lorraine Hansberry, perfectly demonstrates what racial prejudice was like in the fifties. The play revolves around a poverty-stricken African-American family growing up in Chicago, and all the obstacles they must overcome to survive. By using Mama’s plant to symbolize the state of their family and irony to create both humor and drama, Hansberry creates a beautifully vivid story that touches everyone who reads it. According to Merriam Webster, symbolism is using emblematic images and indirect suggestion to express ideas, emotions, and states …show more content…

Throughout the course of the play, she frequently uses irony to not only bring the characters to life, but to also add humor and drama to the story. For instance, when Travis asks his parents for fifty-cents, his mom refuses; however, his dad decides to give him a dollar instead. After this, Walter has to ask his wife for money because he gave all of his to Travis (Hansberry 30-31). This dramatic irony adds lightheartedness and humor to this poignant tale. In contrast, Bobo’s arrival is an example of how situational irony can add drama and suspense. Towards the end of the play, when the family is getting ready to begin their new life, Walter’s partner in the liquor business, Bobo, shows up. At first, it appears as though he came to deliver good news about the store deal; however, soon the audience discovers that Walter used all $6500 on the liquor store, but their other partner, Willy Harris, ran off with all of their money (Hansberry 128). The situation is morbidly ironic, for they were dancing and making fun of a racist community attempting to buy them out of their new home moments earlier. Now, it appears that they may have to consider his

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1449 Words | 6 Pages

The play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry debuted on Broadway in 1959, and the movie was made in 2008. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about the Younger family, the fifth generation of lower-class African-Americans living in Chicago’s Southside. They are faced with problems such as racial discrimination, poverty, and conflicting dreams. As the family decides on how to spend the insurance check of $10,000 from Walter’s father’s death, these problems cause many conflicts to rise. Reading the 1959 play and the 2008 movie, I have realized certain similarities and differences in how the story plays out.

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877 Words | 4 Pages

They previously lived in an apartment and had the all the necessities but had to work to get there. This money is an easy way out of their financial crisis and would lead to poor work ethic. ‘“Father, just gi’ ussen de money, fo’ God’s sake, and we’s, we’s ain’t gwine come out de and dirty up yo white folks neighborhood”’ (Hansberry 144). Walter states that all they want is the money

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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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1104 Words | 5 Pages

The Role of Symbols in A Raisin In The Sun A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play that explores the theme of racial discrimination in American society. The play does this by illustrating the lives and struggles of the Youngers, a working class African American family in downtown Chicago during the 1950s. This was a period when the Black Civil Rights Movement was emerging to challenge the unjust society, in which African Americans were the victims. In order to develop the theme of racial discrimination and portray contrasting ways African Americans reacted to the embryonic movement, Hansberry utilizes symbols associated with main characters, such as Rosa’s command to her husband and Beneatha’s hair.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

A Raisin in The Sun exemplifies how white racism has forced thousands of families to give up their culture and identity in hopes to progress in a society set against them. Though the play highlights the negativity the Younger’s experienced, it shows how perseverance and determination can lead to success. This proves that freedom does exist. In America today African Americans have found ways to gain their freedom, they are able to succeed as themselves, the ultimate sense of

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820 Words | 4 Pages

Racism in A Raisin in the Sun A Raisin in the Sun reflects life in Southside Chicago during the 1950’s. Racism still occurred during this time period and viewed as a common way of living. The Younger’s were an African American family who were treated no different than the rest of the black community, inhumanely. This play portrays the common struggled faced by African Americans who seek nothing more than to better their lives and to truly have an opportunity to acquire the American Dream.

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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.

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1123 Words | 5 Pages

A Raisin is in the Sun is a complex and deeply nuanced literary production created by playwright Lorraine Hansberry in 1957. The play’s success was unprecedented given the time period it was first performed in; in 1959, there had not yet been an African American centered play that had been successful in the way A Raisin in the Sun was. Time in the context of bringing to Broadway the first play by a black (young and unknown) woman to be directed, moreover, by another unknown black “first,” in a theatre where black audiences did not exist—and where, in the entire history of the American stag, there had never been a serious commercially successful black drama! (Nemiroff, 6) This fame can be attributed to the way the play handles universal issues of family, gender, and poverty, but also uniquely ethnic inspired problems of cultural identity, beauty, and equality in America.

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1064 Words | 5 Pages

A Raisin in the sun is a play that revolves around two major themes, namely the struggle of being black and female as well as dreams, hopes and aspirations. In this essay I will discuss the restrictions that gender play in the aspirations of the women of the Younger family in Hansberry’s play. In the play we encounter three females that form part of the Younger family. They include Lena, or Mama as she is often referred to, Beneatha and Ruth.

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623 Words | 3 Pages

In the play A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, many characters in the younger family express their black culture in the first two acts of the play. However, other characters in this play also express different forms of black culture. Asagai and Mrs. Johnson represent two different cultures in the play, but also affect this culture greatly as a whole. Asagai’s and Mrs. Johnson’s divergent cultural views and background highlight the many viewpoints in black culture.

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793 Words | 4 Pages

“Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.” Symbols can add a deeper meaning than just an object itself that the author is trying to make. Symbols can also foreshadow what is yet to come. The audience can interpret a symbol in many ways it depends on their experience. In Southside Chicago the Younger family is struggling to have hope as they are always facing society.

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1280 Words | 6 Pages

The racial attitudes present in the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry connect to how racial discrimination is prevalent in modern day. Discrimination is a battle that has been fought for many years and people in modern day still fight to rid of discrimination and bring justice. A civil rights group known as Black Lives Matter, has been a way for people to fight against discrimination and have their voices heard. This civil rights movement started “[i]n 2013, when George Zimmerman [ a white man] was acquitted of fatally shooting Trayvon Martin [ a black young man]. When this court case came out a lady named, Alicia Garza, saw it and posted a

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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.

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1233 Words | 5 Pages

The Dream of a Mom In the 1950s, finding a job, a house, peers, or even food on the table was difficult for most African American fellows. All of these troubles lead back to racism and prejudice against the pigment of some people’s skin. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, Mama goes through many phases of racism and prejudice in Chicago. Along with the rest of her family, she experiences examples of racism, unfair housing regulations, and problems with gender inequality. Though these are hardships that nobody should have to go through, issues involving discrimination and bigotry helped her to realize her dream and defeat the racism that is presented to her.

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845 Words | 4 Pages

Just within the recent decades, men and women started to fight against the gender stereotypes and started to challenge their roles in a family and in the society. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, portrays the lives of African–Americans during the 1950s. Lorraine Hansberry, a writer and a social activist, reinforced the traditional gender roles, especially female’s, by depicting how the Youngers interact and how they act in an economical struggle. Throughout the play, A Raisin in the Sun, she uses Walter Lee Younger, Ruth Younger and Lena Younger to reinforce the traditional role of fathers, wives and mothers within a family.

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