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Theme Of Ownership In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Different Suns: Ownership and Dreams in A Raisin in the Sun In 1959 Lorraine Hansberry, at the age of 29, became the first African-American female playwright to have her play produced on a Broadway stage. In 1960 Lorraine Hansberry adapted her play into a screenplay, which then materialized into a 1961 film of the same name. The film was directed by Daniel Petrie and starred Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Roy Glenn, and Louis Gossett, Jr— an almost entirely black cast. The title A Raisin in the Sun, comes from a line in the 1951 Langston Hughes poem “Harlem” which questions what happens to a dream deferred. Dreams lie at the core of A Raisin in the Sun and serve to push the action of the story forward while creating tension between characters whose dreams appear to others as obstacles. The theme of ownership runs through both Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play and the 1961 film, manifesting itself primarily in the Younger family’s individual dreams and …show more content…

Ownership means different things to the characters, whether it is over a house, a business, or one’s identity; everyone is striving to have something they can call their own. The Younger’s distinct understandings of ownership are informed by their relationships to the past and their personal experiences of race and gender. By approaching the theme of ownership from multiple perspectives the characters become fully rounded and their complex motivations can be understood as a reflection of the larger societal forces at work. Lena Younger is the matriarch of the Younger family and following her husband’s death, she is left with the decision of how his 10,000 dollar life insurance check will be spent. Lena has been dreaming for a long time of owning a house with a garden that is all her own and providing her children and grandson with the

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“Raisin in the sun” by Lorraine Hansberry according to Dreams Deterred: A Study of Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun is the first African American novel played by Broadway (Al-Duleimy). In this novel Lorraine Hansberry write about the dreams of a colored family, and the difficulties of each member of this family to realize their dreams. “What is so interesting is that these dreams are deferred and finally deterred, because simply they are built on the wrong premises” (Al-Duleimy, 538). Each of family member based their dreams with materialism. Lorraine criticizes the discriminatory and racial climate in America in the 1950s.

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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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The hidden meanings in the references that authors write about, when they write their novels or plays, change how a play or book is thought of and also commences the development of better critical thinking skills.. In the play, A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry uses many different types of literary devices for the play to have a deeper meaning or idea than what is just read. Taking place during the 1950’s in Southside Chicago, the play is about an African American family who live through many struggles, racially and financially. When the father dies and the Younger family receives $10,000, their hopes and dreams are possible and may come true. It is until they lose their money that they realized they “aimed to high”(140), especially Mama and Walter Younger.

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“Life will test you, but remember this, when you walk up a mountain your legs get stronger” ~ Unknown. Life tested the Younger family in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, when they receive a large sum of money and it places the family into a feud. Trying to stop the feuding of her children, and do what she feels the family must do in the 1950s racial prejudice against people of color. Lena Younger, a woman of great strength and dominance, makes difficult choices for the sake of keeping the family together in a time of hardship.

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Historical Analysis: A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the author’s life. The segregation life and the event of moving into a white neighborhood are events from the life of Lorraine Hansberry, the author. The events that occurred in the play along with real life events relate to the Civil Rights Movement and feminist topics. Lorraine Hansberry moved into an all white neighborhood just like the Younger family moved into Clybourne Park. The author did not modify the major events of her own life but rather added a series of complications and details to fit the play such as the event of Walter losing the investment money.

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A Raisin in the Sun is the breakout story of Lorraine's career. A Raisin in the Sun is about her struggle through her life with dealing with racism. She wanted to write about her struggle through one of the hardest parts in American History. Lorraine wasn’t just dealing with her sexality but, she was dealing with racism while people were fighting for African Americans lives. She wrote A Raisin in the Sun in 1959 talking about racism and family struggles but, African Americans lives didn’t change until 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech.

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In the book Raisin in The Sun the characters talk about their dreams. Dreams are most helpful because they give you hope of one day reaching those sensations in people’s lives. The author Lorraine Hansberry intended the book to have the certain impact about how people back then struggled to deal with harsh circumstances that act in their everyday life. The dreams of Mama, Ruth and Walter show us that, despite great obstacles, the American Dream is still possible. First, one character who possesses a powerful dream is Walter.

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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.

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“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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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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Lorraine Hansberry to show the struggles and dreams of African American family. Which talks about dream deferred, the title of the play has a connection between the poem and the play’s characters and their dreams. Each member of the family had their own dream, in order to realize their dreams, Mama, Walter Lee, Ruth, and Beneatha all depended on the money from their father’s insurance check. This shows how much she firmly believes in working together as a family Lorraine Hansberry wrote her play A Raisin in the Sun based on some of her life experiences. She wrote the play so that readers can have an understanding of her life without her literally explaining that is what occurred in her life.

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