Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

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Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun during the 1950’s. The play also takes place in the 1950’s and involves relevant events throughout the play. The main family in the play, the Youngers, represent what any normal African American family would be like during the 1950’s. Although the Youngers are in a play and did not actually go through these specific events, they represent many families that lived in Chicago and struggled like the Youngers did in A Raisin in the Sun. Lorraine Hansberry wrote the play to get more African Americans involved in big-time theater and for the rest of the nation to get an idea of what it was like to be African American and go through those things. In A Raisin in the Sun, the different characters represent …show more content…

The Youngers lived in an apartment complex that was made for African American families. The Youngers’ apartment was very small and housed five people. Before the Youngers got the check, Mama is talking to Ruth about what she plans to do with the money. “But Lord, child, you should know all the dreams I had ’bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back…” (I.1.1923) Mama wants to buy a house that could fit her whole family and have enough room for them to flourish. So when the check comes in, she decides to look for the cheapest house she could find that looked decent. She buys a house in Clybourne Park which is a neighborhood that only whites are living in. A representative from Clybourne Park, Karl Lindner, tries to convince the Youngers to not move to Clybourne Park and offers money to convince them even more. Although Lindner is somewhat nice about it, he is telling them that they are not allowed to live there no matter the kind of people the Youngers are. “To these ends, A Raisin in the Sun insists on local and global black revolution, contests the underpinnings of US segregation, and asserts that civil disobedience, armed struggle, and ideological and economic transformation are imperatives for achieving social justice. “ (Gordon 122) Both Michelle Gordon and Lorraine Hansberry believe that desegregation as the answer to segregation. The quote by Gordon means that the only way for any justice to be given is by violence and changing how African Americans think and live. Segregation was fixed by desegregating small areas and then expanding but “civil disobedience and armed struggle” were not necessary in those movements (Gordon 122). At the end of the play, the Youngers ended up moving into Clybourne Park, which represents the slow overcoming of

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