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Explanation and themes in a raisin in the sun
Explanation and themes in a raisin in the sun
The symbolism within a raisin in the sun
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In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, there is a large family, the Youngers which you may consider them a lower-class, that live in a small apartment and share it with a different family, the johnsons, in a African-American neighborhood, that you may just call a ghetto. They live in a cramped space where they all sleep in small spaces, they have only one bathroom which they have to share it with the Johnsons. They get an opportunity to move into a different house with Lena Younger(Mama)’s husband, Walter Lee and Beneatha Younger’s father, Big Walter,passed away and the youngers got a check. Walter wanted the money to invest in a liquor store, but instead Mama bought a house in a white community with the money. The people in the whites community do not want black folks to move into the community so a representative of the Clybourne Park Owners Association offered money to them so that they would not move in. They should not accept the money that would not contain any pride, dignity, or hope …show more content…
of improving. They should not accept the money because it does not have any pride in it. It would be shameful for them since mama has tied some much to teach Walter Lee and Beneatha about pride and how it is important even in the worst situations. “Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family, the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope – and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride.” She shows pride when her husband and her work hard to improve their living for their family. For them pride means to work hard under your own command and not under no one else's. “My husband always said being any kind of a servant wasn’t a fit thing for a man to have to be. He always said a man’s hands was made to make things, or to turn the earth with – not to drive nobody’s car for ‘em – or – carry they slop jars. And my boy is just like him – he wasn’t meant to wait on nobody.” Mama and her husband have tried to teach Walter and Beneatha about pride and it now seems like walter is now understanding the pride his father had and his mother is trying to keep in the family. The Youngers have pride but also they have dignity. Lena Younger and Big Walter worked hard to get a place to live with pride and dignity for their children.
They now believe it is a “rat trap” and they forgot all the hard work Mama and her husband put into it. “Ruth: Well , Lord knows, we’ve put enough rent into this rat trap to pay for four houses by now… Mama: (studying up at the words “rat trap” and then looking around and leaning back and sighing-in a sudden reflective mood-) “Rat trap”- yes, that’s all it is. I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks and wasn't planning on living here no more than a year”( Hansberry 44). Mama first felt hurt because Ruth called the home she lived in since Big Walter was there a rat trap but later realised she was not going to live there forever but only two weeks, but managed to make it her home with pride and dignity. The Youngers have the pride and the dignity but most of all they have the hope of improving their
lives. The youngers tried their best to have a nice place with their pride and dignity guiding them so they should not give up their hope of improving for some random people that are racist. Mama always wanted to have her own home where she would have her own garden. “We was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know, and buy a little place out in Morgan Park. We had even picked out the house. (chuckling a little) Looks right dumpy today. 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 i n the back- (she waits and stops smiling) And didn't none of it happen.”(Hansberry 45). She explains how she hoped and believed her life would have been like when Big walter was with her. If she does not accept the money she would already have the house she hoped she had. They all have hope that they all will improve like a new home, Beneatha goes to college, and walter has a new job at a liquor store. “Walter: …Just tell me where you want to go to school and you’ll go. Just tell me, what it is you want to be – and you’ll be it….Whatever you want to be – Yessir! You just name it, son…and I hand you the world!” (Hansberry 109). He has hopes that he will improve and not have to work for people as a chauffeur. Also that his son will be able to be anything he wants to be. The youngers believe in pride, dignity, and that they might reach their hopes or dreams. In conclusion, the Youngers demonstrate that with pride, honor, and dreams you can achieve what you deeply desire or goals you may have in life. Mama demonstrated that she was able to achieve her dream so she should not be taken away from her dream by people that do not care about others but themselves and their race. She should choose to stay in the new house than obtaining the money because Big walter worked so hard for them to prosper and for her to reach her dream of having a house of her own with space for her garden and rooms instead of sharing the apartment with a different family.
Mama talks to Walter about her fears of the family falling apart. This is the reason she bought the house and she wants him to understand. Walter doesn't understand and gets angry. "What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine - you - who always talking 'bout your children's dreams..." Walter is so obsessive over money that he yells at his mom for not giving him all of it. He doesn't know that what his mom is doing is for the family. He thinks that having money will make the family happy, when in reality the family doesn't need anymore than what they have to be happy.
Ruth was being prevented from having a baby because of money problems, Walter was bringing him self down by trying to make the liquor store idea work. Once Mama decided to buy the house with the money she had received, Walter figured that he should further go on with the liquor store idea. Then, when Walter lost the money, he lost his dignity and tried to get some money from the “welcome party” of Cylborne Park. Mama forced him to realize how far he went by making him show himself to his son how low he would go. But he showed that he wasn’t susceptible to the ways the racism created.
A Raisin in the Sun In the book “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, there were characters whose dreams were stated, some of which were shattered by greed and misfortune and others which would eventually come true. The first dream that came about was Walter’s dream of one day owning and maintaining a liquor store. He would do anything to attempt to get his dream to come true, but his mama wanted anything but that to happen. His mama had a dream of her own, though, she dreamed of one day owning her own house, where her whole family could stay comfortably.
When your dreams are set aside, delayed or deferred you can experience a number of different emotions. You might feel frustration or angst, angry at the obstacles that might be holding you back from pursuing your dream and worried that you may never be able to reach your goals. You may feel stuck or defeated, if you think that your dream has no sustenance to keep it alive. You could feel defensive if those who you would expect to support you in your pursuit of happiness are instead turning against you and resisting the actions that you are taking in order to reach your goals. When being presented with a life changing amount of money, a family can be torn apart in conflict or brought together in a unified front towards happiness.
Mama Younger has lived in the same ‘house’ for years, but not willingly. When finally presented with the chance of moving her family out of the small cramped room, she naturally takes it, only to soon realize the prices in the ‘colored neighborhoods’ are too overpriced. Seeing this, Mama then takes her search elsewhere and comes across a perfect house, the only problem being that it was in a white neighborhood. When the people in this neighborhood heard of the African American family moving into a house, they send a man named Linden to show their displeasure. “‘I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.’”(pg 117) This quote suggests that the easiest thing the Younger family can do is to sell the house to avoid confrontation. Because of their ethnicity the Younger family is automatically rejected from the welcoming committee of Clybourne Park, even though Linden says race does not play a role in their decision to ask them to move
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.
Have you ever found money coming between you and your family and disrupting love and life? Money can destroy families and change them for the worse. In the Raisin in the Sun, the author Lorraine Hansberry, uses events of her life to relate and explain how the Younger family, of Chicago's South side, struggles and improves throughout the book. One main cause for their family's problems is because of money and how it causes anger to control the family. The play deals with situations in which the family is dealing with unhappiness from money. Walter, the man of the house in the Younger family, tries impressing Travis, his son, too much with money instead of teaching him the more important lessons of life. Walter also dreams to invest in a liquor store and make a lot of money and becomes overwhelmed and badly caught up in his dream. Lastly, the Younger family is much too dependent on the check their Mama is receiving. The family has lost the fact that their mama tries to tell them, before, freedom was life but now money seems to have the controlling factor in life. When money becomes an obsession for a family, problems occur.
intuition. I am a naive. Ruth, Walter’s wife, shares Mama’s dream of buying a larger house. house, so that her son Travis may have somewhere to play. Ruth finds out that she is pregnant and she thinks it best to have an abortion because there is no available space in the house for another mouth, and she feels that having the child would also get in the way.
Ruth has to listen to Walter’s extravagant dreams of being rich and powerful all the time and know that these dreams will never happen. They are very poor and Travis must sleep on the couch because they only have a two-bedroom apartment. Ruth’s dream of having a baby seems crushed when she finds out that she’s pregnant and realizes she can’t support another in the household. When mama and Walter argue about Ruth getting an abortion, Walter says she wouldn’t do anything like that as she walks in, she says “Yes, I would too Walter. I gave her a five-dollar down payment.”
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" was written by Lorraine Hansberry. It has won her an award in 1959, at age 29, the youngest American, the fifth woman, and the black playwright to win the Best Play of the Year Award of the New York Drama Critics. This book of the play has been put in its entire form. The original play did not include some scenes. This book has been an inspiration to a lot people. In my personal opinion, the central message is to show how the value systems of black families are. In some ways they are unique, but most ways are exactly the same as white families.
In A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger family lives in the black belt, a poor and breaking down neighborhood with cracking walls and roaches. The Youngers receive a check for $10,000 from insurance after Big Walter dies. Mama Lena, the grandma of the family, decides to spend the money on a house in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood. When buying the house, a man named Mr. Linder offers them more money than they are paying for the house with the catch of not moving into Clybourne Park. The younger family members made the right decision when declining Mr. Lindner's offer.
Does money really bring happiness? This questions has been asked many times throughout history yet there is no real answer for it. The only true way to understand if money does make people happy is by learning from others experiences and by learning from your own. In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun the characters are caught up in caring too much about the insurance money they received for their father’s death, and it effects them all in many different decisions that they make such as Ruth almost getting an abortion, Mama purchasing a new house for the family, and Walter investing in the liquor store with some of his friends. Through characters Hansberry shows that happiness does come from money.
Throughout Lorraine Hansberry's play *A Raisin in the Sun*, the Younger family embodies the struggle for the American Dream during the 1950s. Living in a small, cramped apartment, each family member works hard, hoping for a better future. A pivotal moment in their lives arrives with a $10,000 insurance check—a gift from Walter Younger Sr.'s life insurance policy. This money, however, proves to be both a blessing and a burden, profoundly influencing the family's dynamics and contributing to the play's overarching themes of hope, conflict, and the true value of dreams.
Lea Geller Mr. Green AP English 4/22/24 When harassment against Lorraine Hansberry’s family reached its climax, “a brick thrown through [Hansberry’s] living room window barely missed [her] head” (“Hansberry”). Despite this incident, Hansberry persisted in her battle against racial discrimination. In Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters in the Younger family mirror her plight, when they confront adversity with perseverance. Although A Raisin in the Sun has an optimistic ending for the Youngers, Hansberry reveals that African American families in mid-twentieth century America faced the enduring challenges of economic instability, unfulfilled dreams, and systematic racism.