A Raisin In The Sun Essay
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.
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The 1950s was not that good of a time for a lot of people especially for African Americans.
Back then they were fighting against segregation and it was difficult for them to get a job or money or even be successful, white people treated them like they were nothing. The 1950s was not only hard for African Americans but also for women. Women were expected to stay home and clean and cook, but they wanted more, women wanted to be treated equally, to get a good job and help make money for their family. Lorraine Hansberry was both African American and a woman living in the 1950s, she wrote the play A Raisin In the Sun based on her life and her family during that time. Even in a time period where she was not welcome she tried to make the best of it, Lorraine Hansberry was the first of her family to go to a non-African American college and she broke barriers. Being in the 1950s was not easy but that is one of the reasons Lorraine wrote her
play. Mama from A Raisin In The Sun treats everyone with respect especially her grandson Travis. Mama treats Travis like her own son and tries to show him right from wrong, she tries to teach him everything she possibly can. “Lord have mercy, look at that poor bed. Bless his heart – he tries, don’t he?’ (She moves to the bed Travis has sloppily made up)” even though Travis should be doing these things for himself Mama does it for him, she spoils him and that just shows how she feels about her family and everyone in it, that she would do anything and everything for them even if it is not necessarily easy. Mama’s relationship with Beneatha is not always the best but Mama tries her best to change and help her in the best possible way. “Yes – I taught you that. Me and your daddy. But I thought I taught you something else too… I thought I taught you to love him.” Mama is arguing with Beneatha about Walter and what his money problems and Mama tells her something very important, she tries to tell Beneatha that she needs to love Walter because she was taught to love someone unconditionally. It is hard for Mama to do that herself sometimes because of everything going on with the life insurance check and losing Walter sr. but she is the matriarch of the family and she needs to show everyone she can handle it and that she is going to be there to help. “Oh – (Very quietly) ‘So now it's life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life – now it's money. I guess the world really do change…’ Walter and Beneatha grew up in a different generation than Mama did and her kids are going to be who they are but sometimes Mama feels differently on things. In A Raisin In The Sun Mama is the “leader” of the family, the matriarch, and sometimes it is difficult and sometimes certain decisions change people but change does not always have to be a bad thing. Mama changed throughout the play, her relationship with Walter was not great but for a while it was worse but over the course of the play they grew closer. “I am afraid you don’t understand. My son said we was going to move and there ain’t nothing left for me to say.” When Mr. Linder came and tried to get them to sell the house back, Walter ended up making the right decision for the family to keep the new house and move in, in Mama’s eyes he was growing up so she stood behind him. Mama’s relationship with Beneatha changed too, Mama and her daughter saw things differently such as god and Beneatha's relationships but Mama just wants what’s best for her daughter “Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learning – because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ‘cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.” Mama is trying to get Beneatha to understand that if she gets to be in a relationship with someone, he has to be ok with being with her in the bad times and she has to be ok with being with him in the same, Mama is just trying to help everyone but sometimes it’s not easy. Mama and Travis always have had a good relationship, he’s young so they don't have to argue about. “She went out and she bought you a house! (The explosion comes from Walter at the end of the revelation and he jumps up and turns away from all of them in a fury. Mama continues, to Travis) You glad about the house? It’s going to be yours when you get to be a man” Mama is telling that one day the house they're getting could be his because she is taking care of everyone even when she's doing something for herself. Mama is the matriarch of the Younger family, she takes care of everyone and tries to make everyone happy and puts her kids before herself. Sometimes it's hard to do everything yourself so you have to change to the situations but changing isn't bad it's how you handle it and what you change and what you do. Mama’s character in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin In The Sun was developed to show that it’s not easy to help everyone and make sure they are all safe and happy but it can still be done.
One of the first ideas mentioned in this play, A Raisin In the Sun, is about money. The Younger's end up with no money because of Walter's obsession with it. When Walter decides not to take the extra money he is offered it helps prove Hansberry's theme. Her theme is that money can't buy happiness. This can be seen in Walter's actions throughout the play.
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.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a dramatic play written in 1959. The play is about an African American family that lives in the Chicago South Side in the 1950’s. Hansberry shows the struggles and difficulties that the family encounters due to discrimination. Inspired by her personal experience with discrimination, she uses the characters of the play, A Raisin In The Sun, to show how this issue affects families.
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.
Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, centers on an African American family in the late 1950s. Hansberry directs her work towards specifically the struggles faced by African Americans during the late 1950s. Through the dialogue and actions of her characters, she encourages not only a sense of pride in heritage, but a national and self-pride in African Americans as well.
A Raisin in the Sun In A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry portrays obstacles that the Younger family and other African Americans had to face and over come during the post World War 2 era. Obstacles that had to be over come by the Youngers were economical, moral, social, and racist obstacles. Lorraine Hansberry, the author of the play had to face one of these as well growing up. Born in Chicago on the south side in an all black neighborhood, Lorraine Hansberry and her family had to deal with segregation.
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.
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 (1959), the author depicts an African American family whom struggles with the agonizing inferiority present during the 1950s. Hansberry illustrates the constant discrimination that colored people, as a whole, endured in communities across the nation. Mama, who is the family’s foundation, is the driving force behind the family on the search for a better life. With the family living in extreme poverty, their family bond is crucial in order to withstand the repression. Hansberry effectively portrays the racism within society, and how it reinforced unity amongst the family members.
Lorraine Hansberry, author of the world renowned play A Raisin in The Sun, was an excellent playwright, she was even the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award (biography.com). A Raisin in The Sun deals with problems like racism and good problems like dreams, similar to the play Master Harold... And The Boys, written by Athol Fugard. Both plays were inspiring and taught me a different lesson.
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.
Lorraine Hansberry is a famous African American playwright. She was inspired by Langston Hughes’s 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 inhabiting on the southside of the Chicago. The whole family strives to make their dream come true.
In the 1960’s Lorraine Hansberry created a play called “Raisin in the sun”. The story takes place on the south side of Chicago, The play was inspired by Langston Hughes poem “Dream Deferred”. The play follows the Younger family as they try to make their dreams come true. In her play, Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry uses Walter, Mama, and Beneatha to show the negative consequences that occur when you defer your dream. First, Hansberry uses Walter to show the consequences that occur when you defer your dream.
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun: Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit of Happiness “A Raisin in the Sun” resonates with many of its readers, but why? Many of its readers differ in race, religion, gender, and socioeconomic background. So how is it that a black family struggling with racial prejudice and economic hardship appeals to so many? Each member of the Younger family has a dream, a want to be more.