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Reaction Paper On A Raisin In The Sun

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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. The main characters of this play are Travis, Ruth, Beneatha, Walter and Lena. Travis is the son of Walter and Ruth is the wife of Walter. Beneatha is Walter’s sister and Lena is Walter’s mother. Walter Lee Younger is the protagonist because he is the man of the house and he …show more content…

Everyone feels sympathetic for Walter because he has a drinking problem. Lena trusts him with sixty-five hundred dollars and he gives it away trying to do a deal that goes wrong. The antagonist of this story is Karl Lindner. Karl is the bearer of bad news. He is apart of the greeting committee of Clybourne Park which is known as a "white" neighborhood. The Younger family purchases a house in Clybourne Park and Karl tries to pay them over ten-thousand-dollars so that they would not move there. He feels as if it would be a threat for colored people to move into white neighborhood. Walter is in conflict with Karl. When Karl comes into the Youngers family house and starts to talk about the community not wanting colored people to live there, Walter kicks Karl out of the house because he feels that Karl is talking about nonsense.

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In the beginning Walter is basically perceived as a jerk-he doesn’t seem to get along with anyone, not even his own family. His character likes to turn discussions into fights, make rude comments to his wife, and act all around immature. A part that accurately shows the way Walter conducts himself is when he is arguing with Ruth and says “Man say: I got to change my life , I'm choking to death, baby! And his woman say- Your eggs is getting cold!”

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The main male character, Walter Neff, is a mere insurance salesman who gets drawn into a murder plot because of his attraction to a married woman. Not surprisingly, Walter faces several moral challenges throughout the story. Since the movie was an adaptation of the novella, some of the moral struggles he deals with vary between the two. In the novella, the death of Phyllis and Walter blatantly defies usual moral principles. At that point in the story, they both had committed a murder and had been caught for it.

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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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1517 Words | 7 Pages

De jure segregation in the United States started to decline with the Brown vs Board Of Education Supreme Court ruling in the 1950s, and continued to decline through the actions of Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and others who protested against the system in hopes of being heard. But even with the passing of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, segregation is still a prevalent force in today’s society. De facto segregation is still felt today, with riots occurring within the past ten years in Ferguson and in Baltimore, predominantly due to police brutality and income inequality. These riots, coupled with actions such as the unjustified killing of Trayvon Martin and the murder of Eric Garner while in police custody, help to show that where we are today is no better than the racist times of de facto segregation and Jim Crow. When events like these occur in today’s

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1130 Words | 5 Pages

Lindner and Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson comes to the Younger’s family home to tell them how many violent and forceful acts await them in Clybourne Park from the white people. Mr. Lindner comes to the Younger’s family home to offer them money, so they do not move into Clybourne Park. “Our association is prepared, through the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family ”(1918). Lindner says that he 's here to tell the Younger’s "the way we do things out in Clybourne Park”(1918).

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831 Words | 4 Pages

The family is supposed to live on the south side of Chicago because although this is not a law, a lot of African Americans are still staying separate from whites. Mr. Lindner, a representative of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, makes it very clear further along in the story that blacks don’t belong in white neighborhoods. As the laws are starting to become less limiting segregation is becoming a thing of the past.

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600 Words | 3 Pages

He wants to be a businessman and own a liquor store. He wants to be able to provide for his family and give them what they have never had. Walter also wants to take his mother’s position as the head of the house and make the financial decisions for the family. Walter can be seen as selfish as instead of putting the money for him and his sister in the bank he uses it all and loses it trying to fulfill his own dreams with no regard to his sister’s dreams or the rest of the family’s.

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A Raisin in the Sun is a play, which consists of three acts for a total of six scenes. From the very beginning, the plot line begins with the Younger family waking up, going about their morning as they normally do. The family living in the small apartment consists of Mama, Beneatha, her daughter, Walter, her son, Ruth, Walter’s wife, and Travis, Walter and Ruth’s son. The apartment that accommodates this family consists of a small kitchen, containing one small window, a living room, which also serves as Travis’ room, and two bedrooms, one for Walter and Ruth, the other shared by Mama and Beneatha. In the kitchen window lays a potted plant, second to only family in Mama’s most prized possessions.

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1414 Words | 6 Pages

A Raisin in the Sun To be prideful is human nature, even when it hasn't been earned. Being proud of who you are and what you have accomplished is an important part of everyone's life, but sometimes we are prideful without something to be proud of. This kind of pride is shown in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry through the character Walter Younger. He enters the play with a false sense of pride in being a man, despite the fact that he is a chauffeur who is struggling to support his family.

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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.

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1127 Words | 5 Pages

Hardships of the Youngers In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters of Mama, Walter ,and Beneatha are faced with hardships associated with their dreams being destroyed by discriminatory housing,racial inequality and lack of support from her family towards her education. In the play all the characters have some kind of dream. Mama wants to get a house for the family, Walter wants to have money to provide for his family and plans to do that with a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to become a doctor. Beneatha is going to school and at the same time she’s trying to discover herself,but her family is not supportive of this.

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1487 Words | 6 Pages

Walter further shows his false pride when he flaunts his newfound sense of power when Mr.Lindner, one of the Younger’s soon-to-be neighbors, offers him an unjust deal. Now that Walter has control over the family 's money, he considers himself the head of the family and decision maker; this plays an important role towards how Walter treats others now that he holds himself to a higher standard. This theme applies to Walter when the chairman of the “welcoming committee” (115) named Mr.Lindner pays a visit to the family a couple weeks before they 're supposed to move into their new home in Clybourne Park. During this visit, Mr.Lindner makes the offer of the Clybourne Park community “buy[ing] the house from [them] at a financial gain to [the] family” (118). Mr.Lindner’s offer represents the racial oppression and how the white community looks down upon and doesn’t want African american people dirtying their communities.

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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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809 Words | 4 Pages

Being the man of the household, Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and plans on using Lena’s money to do so. Walter is always after money and believes that the only way to succeed in life is with money. For example, when Walter is talking about the check, he says, “Mama, sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking about things, turning deals worth millions of dollars, sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (992).This shows how Walter wanted something more out of life and not just be a poor black man. Everyone in this family had dreams but no one supported each other dreams.

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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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