The play A Raisin In The Sun takes place in the south of Chicago, around the late fifties Setting The play “A Raisin In The Sun” takes place in the south of Chicago, around the late fifties. The scenes unfold in the Youngers’ apartment. It is a very small apartment with only a kitchen, a living/dining room and 2 little bedrooms. There is also a tiny bathroom that the Youngers have to share with their neighbours. Inside the apartment is very dark because there are only a few windows and the windows are extremely small. They are 5 people living in this little apartment and so there is very little space. The apartment contains shabby and dilapidated furniture disguised with pieces of cloth and other decorations. Summary The Youngers are a poor and struggling black family living in Chicago, U.S.A. The play begins with them waiting for an insurance cheque of $10,000.00 to come in the mail. Mr. Younger, Mama’s husband, has recently died and the $10,000.00 is a result of his life insurance. Everyone in the Younger residence has his or her own idea on how the money should be spent. Mama, the beneficiary wants to use the money to help to purchase a house with more space, Walter, her son, wishes to use the money to invest in a liquor store with his friends, and Beneatha, her daughter, plans to use the money to pay her college intuition. Ruth, Walter’s wife, shares Mama’s dream to buy a larger house, so that her son Travis may have somewhere to play. Ruth finds out that she is pregnant and she thinks it best to have an abortion because there is no available space in the house for another mouth, and she feels that having the child would also get in the way of Walter’s dreams. She explains this to Walter ... ... middle of paper ... ...es towards African history. George Murchison is also very arrogant. Karl Lindner Karl Lindner is a white man living in Clybourne Park, which happens to be an all white neighbourhood. When the whites hear that the Youngers will be moving to Clybourne Park, they send Lindner to change the Youngers’ minds. In order to do so he bribes the Youngers. The Youngers reject his money and dismiss him from their apartment. Bobo Bobo is one of Walter Younger’s good friends, whom Walter decides to go into business with. They plan to open and run a liquor store. After Walter invests his money in the store and Willy Harris run off with it, Bobo is the person who comes and tells Walter. Willy Harris Willy Harris is another one of Walter’s friends who was involved in the liquor store business. It was he who got greedy, took Walter’s investment money and ran.
The play depicts the feelings and thoughts of the people of their time. Their feelings are different then what we see today in our lives. The family had to deal with poverty and racism. Not having enough money and always being put down because of the color of their skin held them back from having a lot of self-respect and dignity. I think that Mama was the one who had the most pride and held the family together.
When your dreams are set aside, delayed or deferred you can experience a number of different emotions. You might feel frustration or angst, angry at the obstacles that might be holding you back from pursuing your dream and worried that you may never be able to reach your goals. You may feel stuck or defeated, if you think that your dream has no sustenance to keep it alive. You could feel defensive if those who you would expect to support you in your pursuit of happiness are instead turning against you and resisting the actions that you are taking in order to reach your goals. When being presented with a life changing amount of money, a family can be torn apart in conflict or brought together in a unified front towards happiness.
Before seeing how class differences play an important role in “A Raisin in the Sun,” one must examine the location in which the play takes place. Hansberry defines the play’s setting as “Chicago’s Southside, sometime between World War II and the present.” (Hansberry 22) The play was written in 1959, prior to the civil rights movement in America. Even so, this post-war timeframe “exemplified a new wave of black suburbanization” (Wiese 100). As more African Americans made the transition fro...
...the show Ruth discovers that she is pregnant, and because of her economic hardships, she is determining whether or not to keep the baby. This puts her stress level higher than ever. Ruth also starts off the show as a wife who doesn’t believe in Walter’s dream of owning a liquor store, But in the end, Ruth decides to keep the child and finds hope for her, Walter and the Younger family.
The Play takes place during the 1950s racism was still very common for African Americans during this time. After the family receives the money momma decided
Walter is confronted by the event of having another child when his wife, Ruth, shares the information about what has happened and what her plans are to resolve and continue the scenario. Walter brings to topic of his importance to the scenario, and decides to break away from the event and think of his answer towards his wife’s information and response. He later is shown the understanding of his wife by the reaction of his mother, who questions his standing on how his father would have reacted. This brings Walter to think of why he should change and not walk out on times of importance. Walter discovers that his turmoil of drinking and appearance on the topic could lose the life of his newly developing child.
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, has often been dubbed a “black” play by critics since its debut on Broadway in 1959. This label has been reasonably assigned considering the play has a cast that consists primarily of African American actors; however, when looking beyond the surface of this play and the color of the author and characters, one can see that A Raisin in the Sun actually transcends the boundaries of racial labels through the universal personalities assigned to each character and the realistic family situations that continue to evolve throughout the storyline. As seen when comparing A Raisin in the Sun to “The Rich Brother,” a story for which the characters receive no label of race, many commonalities can be found between the characters’ personalities and their beliefs. Such similarities prove that A Raisin in the Sun is not merely a play intended to appeal only to the black community, nor should it be construed as a story about the plights of the black race alone, but instead should be recognized as a play about the struggles that all families, regardless of race, must endure in regard to their diversity and financial disparity. A succinct introduction and excellent writing!
The chasing of a mirage is a futile quest where an individual chases an imaginary image that he or she wants to capture. The goal of this impossible quest is in sight, but it is unattainable. Even with the knowledge that failure is inevitable, people still dream of catching a mirage. There is a fine line that separates those who are oblivious to this fact, and to those who are aware and accept this knowledge. The people who are oblivious represent those who are ignorant of the fact that their dream will be deferred. This denial is the core of the concept used in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The perception of the American Dream is one that is highly subjective, but every individual dream ends in its own deferment.
Living in a society where the fulfillment of dreams is based upon material wealth, the Younger family strives to overcome their hardships as they search for happiness. As money has never been a way of life for the family, the insurance check's arrival brings each person to see the chance that their own dreams can become reality. Whether in taking a risk through buying a "little liquor store" as Walter wishes to do or in -"[wanting] to cure" as Beneatha dreams, the desires of the family depend upon the fate of Mama's check. In the mind of Walter Lee Younger, the check is the pinnacle of all, dominating his thoughts, as he does not wait a second before "asking about money "without" a Christian greeting." He cannot see beyond the fact that he "[wants] so many things" and that only their recently acquired money can bring them about. The idea of money and being able to hold it "in [his] hands" blinds him from the evils of society, as he cannot see that the Willy Harris's of the world will steal a person's "life" without a word to anyone. When money becomes nothing but an illusion, Walter is forced to rethink his values and his family's future, realizing that there is more to living that possessing material riches.
Ruth’s dream is to have a happy and loving family. Ruth’s dream is revealed in act 2, scene 3, when she is ecstatic because she went to the movies with Walter and they held hands (111). This exposes Ruth’s dream because her greatest moments are when she is with someone in her family and they are happy to be together. Walter stands in the way of this dream because money is his first priority. In act 1, scene 2, Walter declares that money is life (74). This demonstrates Walter’s obsession with money because he informs Mama that money means everything to him. In act 2, scene 2, Mama tells Walter that she would do anything for him and gives him a lot of money; after Mama gives her heartfelt speech, Walter just stares at the money (106). This shows money is more important than family to Walter because his mother just told him she would do anything for him, but Walter only cares about the money in front of him. However,
Ruth is Walter's wife. Her dream is to have a happy family but she also wants to be wealthy.
Mama talks to Walter about her fears of the family falling apart. This is the reason she bought the house and she wants him to understand. Walter doesn't understand and gets angry. "What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine - you - who always talking 'bout your children's dreams..." Walter is so obsessive over money that he yells at his mom for not giving him all of it. He doesn't know that what his mom is doing is for the family. He thinks that having money will make the family happy, when in reality the family doesn't need anymore than what they have to be happy.
An Analysis of A Raisin In the Sun & nbsp; "A Raisin In The Sun" is a play written by an African-American playwright - Lorraine Hansberry. It was first produced in 1959. Lorraine Hansberry's work is about a black family in the Chicago South Side. the Second World War. The family consisted of Mama(Lena Younger), Walter.
A Raisin in the Sun is a play telling the story of an African-American tragedy. The play is about the Younger family near the end of the 1950s. The Younger family lives in the ghetto and is at a crossroads after the father’s death. Mother Lena Younger and her grown up children Walter Lee and Beneatha share a cramped apartment in a poor district of Chicago, in which she and Walter Lee's wife Ruth and son Travis barely fit together inside.
Have you ever found money coming between you and your family and disrupting love and life? Money can destroy families and change them for the worse. In the Raisin in the Sun, the author Lorraine Hansberry, uses events of her life to relate and explain how the Younger family, of Chicago's South side, struggles and improves throughout the book. One main cause for their family's problems is because of money and how it causes anger to control the family. The play deals with situations in which the family is dealing with unhappiness from money. Walter, the man of the house in the Younger family, tries impressing Travis, his son, too much with money instead of teaching him the more important lessons of life. Walter also dreams to invest in a liquor store and make a lot of money and becomes overwhelmed and badly caught up in his dream. Lastly, the Younger family is much too dependent on the check their Mama is receiving. The family has lost the fact that their mama tries to tell them, before, freedom was life but now money seems to have the controlling factor in life. When money becomes an obsession for a family, problems occur.