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A Dream Deferred in A Raisin in the Sun and Harlem
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.
Each of the characters in A Raisin in the Sun has a dream for which they base their whole happiness and livelihood on attaining. However, the character of Lena Younger, or Mama, differs from the other members of her family. Time after time, Mama postpones her dream of owning a house and garden to perpetuate the dreams of her family members. Finally, when Mama receives the $10,000 insurance check, she feels that her dream can become reality, and purchases a house in Clybourned Park. Her dream "drys up like a raisin in the sun" when she learns that Walter gave the money to Willy Harris, who mysteriously disappears. Mama does not shatter simply because her dream has not been fulfilled. "Lena Younger's strength of character has come from the steadfast endurance of hardship and a refusal to be conquered by it" (Phillips 51). Mama's economic hardships may have killed her dream, but she has not allowed it to kill her.
The social inequality which the Younger's encounter also does not hinder Mama's compassion. Mr. Lindner temporarily shatters Mama's dream of owning a home when he comes to the Youngers prepared to give them money to move from Clybourne Park. The derogatory use of "you people" by Mr. Lindner has little to no effect on Mama's steadfast decision to move to Clybo...
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... beings react when a dream dies. Edward J. Mullen notes that Hughes' poem represents the idea that, "the inhabitants of this 1951 Harlem seem to be seeking feverishly and forlornly for some simple yet apparently unattainable satisfaction in life" (142). Both Hansberry's play and Hughes' poem establish a powerful and human reaction to the death of a dream.
Works Cited
Hansberry Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. [1959] Literature. 5th ed. Eds. James N. N. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, O. 1700-57.
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." [1951] Literature. 5th ed. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28.
Mullen, Edward J. Critical Essays on Langston Hughes. Boston: G. K. Hall, 142.
Phillips, Elizabeth C. The Works of Lorraine Hansberry. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. 48-62.
1920’s Harlem was a time of contrast and contradiction, on one hand it was a hotbed of crime and vice and on the other it was a time of creativity and rebirth of literature and at this movement’s head was Langston Hughes. Hughes was a torchbearer for the Harlem Renaissance, a literary and musical movement that began in Harlem during the Roaring 20’s that promoted not only African-American culture in the mainstream, but gave African-Americans a sense of identity and pride.
Hughes, Langston. The Negro mother, and other dramatic recitations. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. Print.
Berry, Faith. Langston Hughes Before and Beyond Harlem Connecticut: Lawrence Hill and Company Publishers, 1983
In Langston Hughes’ poem, the author gives us vivid examples of how dreams get lost in the weariness of everyday life. The author uses words like dry, fester, rot, and stink, to give us a picture of how something that was originally intended for good, could end up in defeat. Throughout the play, I was able to feel how each character seemed to have their dreams that fell apart as the story went on. I believe the central theme of the play has everything to do with the pain each character goes thru after losing control of the plans they had in mind. I will attempt to break down each character’s dream and how they each fell apart as the play went on.
Hansberry, Lorraine. "A Raisin in the Sun." Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 1771-830. Print.
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2011. 950-1023. Print.
“Overview of Lorrain (Vivian) Hansberry.” Discovering Authors. (1999). Student Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Collin County Community College Library, Plano TX. 28 February 2011 .
In Lorraine Hansberry “A Raisin in the Sun”, the issues of racial discrimination, the debate of heroism, and criticism is vividly displayed. The play, which was written in the late 1950’s presents itself in a realistic discerning matter that implicates the racial division among the black family and white America. The play insinuates Walters’s heroism as well because of the black family’s struggle not to become discouraged in trying to obtain the world riches and still maintaining human dignity. When Hansberry wrote “A Raisin in the Sun”, many critics questioned the motive behind her play because it showed the America the world wants to grow oblivious to. This presents the reality of racial discrimination and heroism for the black man among
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.
American writer and political analyst, Michael Auslin argumentative essay “The Filth They Breathe in China” (January 11, 2017) argues China’s air quality is harmful and extremely dangerous to the people of China and their environment. Auslin conveys his argument through logos, pathos and imagery. Auslin’s purpose is to illustrate to his readers China’s economic growth destroying its environment. Auslins strengthens his overall point by adopting a convincing tone for readers with a concern for the environment.
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 conflict that involves Walter and Mama superficially concerns Mama's receiving an insurance check for ten thousand dollars, which she hasn't yet decided what to do with. Walter has hopes for using the money to invest in a liquor store, with the profits providing him and his family a better quality of life than what they have endured in the past. What really is at stake here, though, is more than money. Mama and Walter have different visions of what happiness is and what life is all about. For Mama, the best thing to do with the money is to make a down payment on a house. This house is to be situated within an all-white neighborhood, and represents assimilation. This is Mama's dream, and the dream ...
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. Norton. Ninth. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter,
...g in Adults, Study Finds." New York Times, , sec. Editorial, October 17, 2012. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=ST135623-0-1117&artno=0000346232&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Trans fatty acids&title=Cholesterol Is Falling in Adults, Study Finds&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N (accessed November 20, 2013).
Just like Klein states, “Protecting and valuing the earth’s ingenious systems of reproducing life and the fertility of all of its inhabitants, may lie at the center of the shift in worldview that must take place if we are to move beyond extractivism” (424). Indeed to build a better world, we must go beyond the capitalism, however, unlike the divestment movement around other countries, it is challenging for people in China to take action to against the air pollution due to the fact that those heavy industries and businesses have Chinese government in their back to support