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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. Primarily, in A Raisin in the Sun Walter is an example of one struggling to achieve their dream or desire. Walter serves as the hero and villain of the play due to the actions he takes revolving his dream. “Walter, who firmly believes in the American Dream of economic independence, wants to own his own business, and a liquor store, because he despairs over what he perceives to be his inability to support the family and to provide for his son’s future” ( __ __ ). Walter’s dream is to be sole the provider for his household and give his family a better life. He plans by doing this through a liquor store investment with the insurance money given to Mama from Big Walters death. “In the play Walter loses much of the insurance money that he planned to invest on a liquor store to a con artist” ( ___ ___ ). Walter’s decision on investing in a liquor store turns out to be a horrific choice. In the play although Walter is regretfully deceived and looked down upon as a result of the liquor store ambition, he makes up for it by at the end finally reaching his manhood. During the time of the play the husband of the family is mainly the sole provider for the family. In the case of the play, Walters mother is the sole provider for the family. Walter strives to be the “man” of the house.“A job. (Looks at her) Mama, a job? I open and close car doors all day long. I drive a man around in his limousine and I say, “Yes, sir; no, sir; very good, sir; shall I take the Drive, sir?” Mama, that ain’t no kind of job. That ain’t nothing at all. (Very quietly) Mama, I don’t know if I can make you understand” ( Hansberry , Pg.73). “Walter minimizes the position of a car driver because to him it diminishes his manhood and his sense of individual worth.
Stephanie Kelley Comp 2 Ms. Caldwell 12 November 2016 The American Dream In Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun,” she uses the Younger family to show that as individuals strive to reach their dreams they often ignore the aspirations of others but they may eventually learn to support each other in an attempt to better their lives. Hansberry uses each character to express the different views people may have about the American Dream. Each family member has their own pursuit of happiness, which is accompanied by their American Dream.
The American dream has been visualized and pursued by nearly everyone in this nation. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about the Younger family that strived for the American dream. The members of the Younger family shared a dream of a better tomorrow. In order to reach that dream, however, they each took different routes, which typified the routes taken by different black Americans.
The american dream is not easy to obtain with many barriers standing in the way of people trying to achieve their american dream. In the novel The Raisin in the Sun and in the short stories In American Society and America and I . It is more difficult to achieve the american dream as an outsider due to social, economic and cultural barriers than those who live on the inside.
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
A Raisin in the Sun is written by a famous African- American play write, Lorraine Hansberry, in 1959. It was a first play written by a black woman and directed by a black man, Lloyd Richards, on Broadway in New York. The story of A Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry’s own early life experiences, from which she and her whole family had to suffer, in Chicago. Hansberry’s father, Carol Hansberry, also fought a legal battle against a racial restrictive covenant that attempted to stop African- American families from moving in to white neighborhoods. He also made the history by moving his family to the white section of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in 1938. The struggle of Lorraine Hansberry’s family inspired her to write the play. The title of the play comes from Langston Hughes’s poem which compares a dream deferred too long to a raisin rotting in the sun. A Raisin in the Sun deals with the fact that family’s and individual’s dreams and inspirations for a better life are not confined to their race, but can be identified with by people with all back grounds.
In the Play “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry there are two main character’s that many people debate upon to be the protagonist of the play. Those two characters are Mama and Walter. The story is about an African American family living in Chicago in the 1950’s. During this time period race was a large issue in that area. The family consists of three generations, Mama being the mother and grandmother has a lot of responsibilities as what I see her to be as the families anchor. The next generation is Walter his wife Ruth and his sister Beneatha. Walter and Ruth have a song Travis who is ten years old at the time of this play. Mama is the moral supporter of the family and believes that everything has a purpose and that things should be done by design. One of the main events in this play is the life insurance settlement check for ten thousand dollars that Mama receives. This being a large amount of money during that time period creates many arguments between the families about what to do with the money. Walter is the type of guy that believes his family shouldn’t settle like everyone else and believes that they shouldn’t be held back just because they are an African American family living in what is referred to as a “white man’s world”. I believe that Walter is the protagonist of the play for two main reasons, he isn’t a selfish man, he doesn’t feel the family should be limited because they are African American and he has distinct options or plans for the future of his family.
A Raisin in the Sun is basically about dreams, as the main characters struggle to deal with the oppressive circumstances that rule their lives. The Youngers struggle to attain these dreams throughout the play, and much of their happiness and depression is directly related to their attainment of, or failure to attain, these dreams. By the end of the play, they learn that the dream of a house is the most important dream because it unites the family.
A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, and Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, both address the American Dream. Both plays discuss the desire for wealth and how the desire may lead to one’s downfall. However, each play is very different in addressing issues such as race and feminism. A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman have the same major theme of the American Dream, but address other issues differently along the way. A Raisin in the Sun is about an African American family in Chicago. Living in the same old broken down house is Lena Younger, who is the mother to both Beneatha and Walter, who also live in the house. Walter is married to Ruth and is the father of Travis. As the play begins, the family is about to inherit an insurance check for 10,000 dollars. This money comes from the death of Lena’s husband. Each member of the family wants to do something different with that money. Lena wants to buy a bigger house in a nicer area, and Ruth agrees with her. Beneatha wants the money to go to tuition for medical school. Walter wants to invest the money in a liquor store, so he can own the store, and become successful and rich. He is tired of just being a cab driver. However, Lena inten...
The idea of the American Dream still has truth in today's time, even if it is wealth, love, or
American writer James Truslow Adams once said, “Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement…” (Epic) Adding on, Adams explained full achievement of the American Dream can be perused by anyone, no matter one’s race, gender, personality and other personal differences between man. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, written by Loraine Hansberry, has characters that have personality traits that provide them a path to success and the American Dream. The Younger family, in the play are below the average middle class American family, but overall, they are hard believers and all members have different views of the American dream based on their personality’s, especially Beneatha Younger. At the time of the play, chances of becoming a doctor and even going to college as a black woman, were very rare, however, Beneatha
Due to the large number of opportunities and freedom that the American Dream supposedly offers, individuals from all walks of life have their own personal American Dream that they wish to achieve. For most people those dreams will, however, never turn into reality. Especially African Americans, they have a hard time realizing their dreams and achieving their goals in the 1950’s through the 60’s. Too many challenges that hamper the achievements of their dreams were part of their daily life and difficult to overcome in the. What adds to the hardships of black American families is a generation gap that seems to widen due to the diverging perceptions of the American Dream. Thereby, the aspirations for financial success, that were especially present among younger generations, display a far-off shot from the original paradigm of the American Dream, which used to be the pursuit of happiness, freedom, justice, and more fruitful future prospects for the coming generations. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she shows that achieving one’s dream, especially the American Dream can be difficult, through characterization, conflict, and setting.
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.
Her play reveals the fears and restraints, which kept many blacks from achieving the 1950's American Dream. The dominant theme in A Raisin in the Sun is the quest for home ownership. The play is about a black family living on the Southside of Chicago — a poverty-stricken, African American enclave of the city.... ... middle of paper ... ... Goodman, Paul.
In a Raisin in The Sun a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, emphasizes the importance of dreams regardless of the many obstacles and struggles in life. A dream to have a better life. Mrs. Younger, Walter Lee, and Beneatha have their own idea and dreams of what they consider to be a better life.
The struggle for financial security and success has always been prominent in the American culture. The idea of the American dream captures the hearts of so many, yet leaves almost all of them enslaved in the endless economic struggle to achieve high status, wealth, and a house with a white picket fence. In Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, we see how difficult it is for Willy Loman and his sons to achieve this so called American dream. In Lorraine Hansberry's, A Raisin in the Sun, she examines an African-American family's struggle to break out of the poverty that is preventing them from achieving some sort of financial stability, or in other words the American dream. Both plays explore the desire for wealth, driving forces that encourage the continued struggle for dreams, and how those dreams can lead to the patriarchal figure’s downfall. However, the plays contain minor differences, which have a common underlying factor, that leads A Raisin in the Sun to have a much more positive outcome than Death of a Salesman.