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Lorraine Hansberry is a famous african american playwright. She was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem “Dream Deferred”. She wrote an entire play based off of his poem. Her play is called Raisin in the Sun. This play is about the Younger family, a black family living on the Southside of Chicago. The whole family tries to make their dreams come true. In her play, Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry uses Mama, Walter and Beneatha to show the negative consequences that occur when you defer your dreams. First, Hensberry uses mama to show the negative consequences that occur when you defer your dreams. Mama is hardworking. She is always doing everything she can to help their family and to have a better life. She lives with her daughter, her son …show more content…
Walter is racist and sexist. He works driving rich white people around and he is sick of this. He wants to be a boss, he wants to be the king of his jungle. He has a wife and a son. They all live with his mom. When things doesn’t go right for him, or not the way he wants, everything he does is drink and walk. Walter is tired of working for white people, he wants to open a liquor store illegally. When mama got the money from his father’s life insurance, he asked for some money to open the liquor store, and she said no. She got really mad at her, and started getting drunk everyday. He didn’t show up to work for three days and lost his job. However, When mama finally gave him the money to open the liquor store, his friend ran away with all the money, including the part that he was supposed to put in the bank so his sister can go to college. Walter says, “Gone, what you mean Willy is gone? Gone where? You mean he when by himself. You mean he went off to Springfield by himself - to take care of getting the license.” (Hensberry 128). This proves that his dream of having a liquor store is not gonna happen because his friend ran away all of his money. Also, he wanted his son to go to college and be whoever he wants to, and now, it’s not going to happen too. He was surprised and really mad that his friend did that do him. This proves that Hensberry uses Walter to show all of the bad
The civil rights movement brought enlightenment towards the abolishment of segregation laws. Although the laws are gone does segregation still exist in fact? “What happens to a dream deferred, does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?'; said, in a poem by Langston Huges. The story, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry showed segregation and its affects upon all races. This essay will show how Assimilationists and New Negroes fought for their own identity in the mid twentieth century. Whether they were being true to themselves or creating carbon copies of oppression was determined by one’s view upon society.
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry is realistic fictional drama in which the play 's title and the character represent the play 's theme. The play focused on Black America 's Struggle to reach the American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness during the 1950s and the 1960s. The idea of everyone having the chance to achieve a better life should exist for all. Hansberry conceives her title using a line from Langston Hughes poem “A dream deferred”. The original poem was written in 1951 about Harlem. Hughes’ line from the poem state that when dreams are deferred “Does it dry up like a Raisin in the Sun”. This meant that they describe them as being small and already pretty withered. Hughes poem further suggested that when
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.
A Raisin in the Sun In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry dramatizes the emotional impact of a “dream deferred,” relying on Langston Hughes’ famous poem, which she uses as an epigraph. In the poem, Hughes believes a dream deferred is a dream that a person has had since he/she was young but never could accomplish because life got in the way. In the play, Walter and Mamma suffer pain and frustration as they see their dreams of a happy and safe life being deferred.
Walter’s main dream in this book was to open up a liquor store and make money. His thirst for a better live drove him to work toward these goals. When Mama tells Walter that she took all of the life insurance
It becomes obvious to the reader that the racial tension Hansberry experienced growing up reflected on the way her literature is written. Moss and Wilson state that, “Lorraine Hansberry’s South Side childhood, particularly her father’s battle to move into a white neighborhood, provided the background for the events in the play” (314). Hansberry experienced many of the situations she placed the Younger family at first hand. Hansberry’s father, Carl Hansberry, was put in a similar circumstance when he moved his family into a predominately white community at the opposition of the white neighbors. He eventually won a civil rights case on discrimination. Speaking of the United States, Adler states, “A Raisin in the Sun is a moving drama about securing one’s dignity within a system that discriminates against, even enslaves, its racial minorities” (824).
Throughout the play the subject of money plays a very important role in their lives. From Walter's point of view, money symbolizes a ticket. The only way to have a name in society or have some importance is to have this "ticket". Without it you are rejected and an outcast. This need to have this "ticket" is driving Walter to the point of insanity. He, in the beginning of the play, is very calm about his proposition of investing money in a liquor store. He goes to Ruth, explains how this will make him rich and happier. However Ruth just blows him off and says "eat your eggs". Walter then tries with Mama, explaining that to have money will make Travis appreciates him more as a father. Mama then says that he has a job; Walter interrupts and says that his job is opening and closing doors for white people, and that, that is not considered a job. Then Walter completely explodes when Ruth tells him she is pregnant. He pressures the family more saying that it is even more important now that they are going to be paying for another person. He then cracks and goes to the bar multiple times during the play. He finally is cornered by Mama who gives him the left over money from buying the
Surrounding the theme of the play “A Raisin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, a whole new aspect of the American Dream is portrayed, emphasizing the pure essence of dreams despite any hardship the Youngers comes across. Lena Younger is the prime example of this hopefulness and desire for her children’s and her dream to come true. For instance, Lena says, “Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one” (Hansberry 53), where “the plant” symbolizes her undying dreams that she continually harbors even though the economic impediment seems to be unbearable, just like how “the plant” keeps striving in spite of the lack of sunlight
Her outlook on life is directly related to her family. Lena believes that the Younger can get through hard times and move out of their struggling neighborhood. Mama’s biggest dream is to see her future generations achieve more in life than she and her husband did. To attain this dream, Mama uses her husband’s insurance money to make a payment on a house. Because of her optimism, the audience believes that Mama too views life as a line that extends into infinity. Even though Lena almost always seems so positive, at times Mama can be pulled into the circle philosophy. For example, “Mama enters from her bedroom. She is lost, vague, trying to catch hold, to make some sense of her former command of the world, but it still eludes her. A sense of waste overwhelms her gait; a measure of apology rides on her shoulders. She goes to her plant, which has remained on the table, looks at it, picks it up and takes it to the windowsill and sits it outside, and she closes the window, straightens her body with effort and turns around to her children” (121). Mama’s loss of hope after her son loses the money is greatly expressed when she left the plant outside. This event shows that Mama felt there was no point in trying to fix the situation because life will just repeat itself, like a circle. Although Mama always seems to bring the family together and make them believe that life is like a line again, sometimes she cracks and thinks life will not get
In ‘A Raisin in the Sun’, Lorraine Hansberry describes each of the family’s dreams and how they are deferred. In the beginning of the play Lorraine Hansberry chose Langston Hughes’s poem to try describe what the play is about and how, in life, dreams can sometimes be deferred.
The author of the play A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry, wrote this play in 1959 when she was 29 years old, she had the first play on broadway written by an African American and she was the youngest American to win the New York Critics Circle award. Back in the 1950s, women were expected to stay home and cook and take care of their kids while the men went out and had jobs and made all the money but Lorraine wanted something different. In A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry develops the character of Mama through her treatment of Walter, the treatment of Beneatha and the treatment of her grandson Travis to show that it is not easy being the matriarch of the family but she tries her hardest to be help everyone.
In the American society of the 1950s, prevalence of discrimination strongly existed against colored people and women. To speak of this injustice, Lorraine Hansberry wrote a drama which revolved around characters whose such views plagued the lives of others. In the drama, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry exposes the presence of oppression and white supremacy through the characters of George Murchison, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. Linder.
A Raisin in the Sun is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry. The primary focus of the play is the American Dream. The American Dream is one’s conception of a better life. Each of the main characters in the play has their own idea of what they consider to be a better life. A Raisin in the Sun emphasizes the importance of dreams regardless of the various oppressive struggles of life.
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about segregation, triumph, and coping with personal tragedy. Set in Southside Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the individual dreams of the Younger family and their personal achievement. The Younger's are an African American family besieged by poverty, personal desires, and the ultimate struggle against the hateful ugliness of racism. Lena Younger, Mama, is the protagonist of the story and the eldest Younger. She dreams of many freedoms, freedom to garden, freedom to raise a societal-viewed equal family, and freedom to live liberated of segregation. Next in succession is Beneatha Younger, Mama's daughter, assimilationist, and one who dreams of aiding people by breaking down barriers to become an African American female doctor. Lastly, is Walter Lee Younger, son of Mama and husband of Ruth. Walter dreams of economic prosperity and desires to become a flourishing businessman. Over the course of Walter's life many things contributed to his desire to become a businessman. First and foremost, Walter's father had a philosophy that no man should have to do labor for another man. Being that Walter Lee was a chauffeur, Big Walter?s philosophy is completely contradicted. Also, in Walter?s past, he had the opportunity to go into the Laundromat business which he chose against. In the long run, he saw this choice was fiscally irresponsible this choice was. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Lee's dreams, which are his sole focus, lead to impaired judgement and a means to mend his shattered life.
In Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, the author reveals a hard-working, honest African-American family struggling to make their dreams come true. Langston Hughes' poem, "Harlem," illustrates what could happen if those dreams never came to fruition. Together, both Hansberry and Hughes show the effects on human beings when a long-awaited dream is thwarted by economic and social hardships.