Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, produced in 1959, echoes many of the conflicts, with which African Americans have to deal with in everyday life. By depicting the African American family Younger, Hansberry offers a great insight into African American culture. Although the main plot of the play deals with the issue of how the Younger family will spend a $10.000 life insurance check, the play, however, emphasizes foremost on the conflicts between the white and black society, alluding to the quest for identity by considering the image of Africa in African American culture. In fact, African culture in a way influences each character of the play – though some more than others – aiming to answer Africa’s significance in their individual …show more content…
Therefore, the playwright makes use of some elements of Ethiopianism, explaining inner thoughts about their individual identities. The term Ethiopianism has not been coined as being something Ethiopian, i.e. focusing only on the country Ethiopia, but refers rather to the whole continent Africa and includes a great sense of freedom and pride, having the notion that “the people of African descent will rise from oppression and regain their power” (ibid. 24). It emerged in the Diaspora, describing a set of beliefs for all Africans and indicating a common heritage for Africans as well as African Americans. Further, as suggested in Poikāne-Daumke’s work, African Americans nowadays consider Ethiopia as their “lost spiritual homeland”, indicating their problems in assimilating to the New World …show more content…
This is further underlined in his first appearance by giving Beneatha the nickname “Alaiyo”, meaning “One for Whom Bread – Food – Is Not Enough” (Hansberry, 2001: 45). In his work, Philip Uko Effiong explains that this expression suggests a marginalized people’s longing for an improvement of life, i.e. happiness, which can only be provided by freedom (cf. 2009: 103). Surely, this can be related to the issue of rising and regaining power – contained in the definition of Ethiopianism – and the hope of simply escaping exactly this miserable situation. Another element Hansberry focuses on by using Asagai as a metaphor for Africa is the very fact that African Americans may be perceived of having lost their connection to their ancestral past. Therefore, Asagai functions as a teacher in the play, revealing ancient African traditions and displaying a significant noble way of thinking about life. In Act I, Scene Two, audiences may become aware of the huge cultural gap between native Africans and African Americans, evoking the notion that African Americans may have assimilated to a high extent to the New World – i.e. to the white society (cf. Poikāne-Daumke, 2006: 34). Here,
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.
Adah acknowledges what her father has done wrong and his inability to realizes his faults. The African land that the family has set food on cannot change according to their desires and attempting to do so only damages it more. Kingsolver illustrates that many do not seem to realize the impact of going into a country and asking them to change their religion, way of developing food, or their education system. Those attempting to colonize do not see the destruction that they are doing. Africa to Adah has been born like this, and “ have managed to balance together on a trembling geological plate for ten million years.” This shows that balance has already been achieved in the views of the Africans and livin...
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.
Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative provides insight into cultural assimilation and the difficulties such assimilation. The writer embraces several Western traits and ideals yet guards his African virtues jealously. In doing so however, he finds himself somewhere in between a full European and a displaced African. This problem of cultural identity Equiano struggled with is still present in modern American society. The modern day African-American appears to also be in the process of deciding the between two competing cultures and often being left somewhere in middle becoming a victim of cultural identity just like Olaudah Equiano some 250 years ago.
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.
Hansberry’s essay, although very hopeful in terms of changing society through artists and writers, acknowledges that African Americans are very rarely able to break free of the stigma and stereotypes that surround them in society. This idea of being stuck is mirrored in her dramaturgy, in the quote “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” (a raisin, 23). In this case, the furnishings of the room symbolize African Americans and their culture in society—they have not been cared for, they have not been loved, and they no longer have hope of that changing. They have been stuck in this position so long that a time where they were free of stigma and stereotypes is “a time probably no longer remembered”. The way our society is structured, no way exists to avoid the inaccurate representation of African American culture—and through the portrayal of this in her dramaturgy along with her plot and essay, Hansberry allows one to see both a broad and close-up example of this concept, making it more powerful and
Dream’s Recovered Everyone has dreams; everyone has goals they want to accomplish. Some know what it is instantly, and some take time to realize what they want to do. But not everyone will achieve their dreams and some, because of sad circumstances, lose their grip on their dreams and fall into a state of disappointment. Langston Hughes poem relates to the dreams of Mama, Ruth, and Walter in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun.
During the 1960s, the African-American people were in racial situations due to their “lowered status”. They had no control over the strong beliefs in segregation, which “is characterized by a mixture of hope and despair.” (Nordholt) African-Americans, like normal people, had strived to achieve set goals. Unfortunately, their ethnicity was what inhibited them from accomplishing their dreams. In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the author conveys the theme of the seemingly trivial efforts of the African-American people in their individual pursuits for a satisfactory life lead each person down a road of self-discovery that reveals an indefinite amount of truths, which transform their promising hopes into unachievable fantasies. By using powerful characterization, Hansberry creates characters with contrasting personalities dividing their familial hopes into different dreams. With the use of symbolism, each character’s road is shown to inevitably end in a state where dreams are deferred.
Professor Colin Palmer, author of “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora,” is a Jamaican-bred historian.1 He studied at the University College of the West Indies/London and the University of Wisconsin.1 Dr. Palmer has taught history classes at Oakland University and the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York and has served as the Chair of the Department of History for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.1 Additionally, Palmer has written numerous books on Black culture, including Slaves of the White God: Black in Mexico, 1570 – 1650, Human Cargoes: The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700 – 1739 and Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America.1 Based on his upbringing, schooling and work experience, Professor Colin Palmer is more than qualified to write about the modern African diaspora.
“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, – this longing to attain self-consciousness, manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message f...
The main focus in this novel is on one man, Okonkwo, the protagonist who symbolises the many Nigerians, or Africans who were struggling against the white missionaries, who brought their religion and policies and imposed them on Okonkwo’s and the other surrounding tribes. Achebe also shows how great the effect is when something as seemingly un-invasive, such as a church, is set up in a Nigerian or African Culture. Among other issues, A...
Notwithstanding the verity that this act develops in pessimism, the Youngers recapture assurance and determination to chase their fantasy as it extends. Asagai recommences Beneatha’s gallantry and perception of triumph. His heart-to-heart of colonial Africa and his stated notion that the reigning authorities be compelled to cascade envisages the uprising that was to arise in those provinces in the decades subsequent to the 1950s. Asagai’s contention that when Beneatha appears in Africa she will attain the hysterical desire as if she has been away for only a day is a contention that America can’t at any time be a region of dwelling for blacks, no matter how long they have lingered there.
In Chinua Achebe 's classic novel "Things Fall Apart," the development of European colonization 's lead to extreme cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on the Igbo village of Umofia in West Africa. In the novel, Achebe displays the impacts of European colonization in both critical and sympathetic terms to provide the reader with both positive and negative factors of Imperialism to develop an unbiased understanding of what the Igbo culture and society went through. While addressing the hardship 's of life by showing the deterioration of Okonkwo 's character, the cultural and traditional changes of society, and the positive and negative impacts of imperialism, Achebe keeps touch on the overall theme of the novel, once a dramatic event
By providing African terms to replace European ones, he gives a sense of his culture. Achebe also tells stories that impart knowledge of African values to European readers. Thiong'o must understand that although people were originally punished for speaking their mother tongue, things are changing.
According to David Whittaker, Achebe’s work “proved to be an immensely influential work for African writers, becoming the progenitor of a whole movement of fiction, drama, and poetry, which focused on the revaluation of Africa’s history and cultures, and on representations of the culture conflicts that has their genesis in the colonial era.” This novel became a pivotal point of realization not only for Africa, but also for the world. All at once the world, afraid of what change may bring, pushed the same question to the back their mind: “What if we have it all wrong?” Suddenly, the culture of Africa was influencing the culture of America, Asia, Europe, Australia, etc. Achebe’s novel was a catalyst in the process of nationalist renewal and decolonization of African culture as a whole (Whittaker). A principle in this novel’s thematic course is the inter-generation conflict faced by not only the village as a whole, but also, on a microscopic level, in Okonkwo’s household. As the culture in Umuofia begins to shift, the predecessors of the current generation heavily rely on the cultural norms initiated by their father’s fathers. While tradition should be honored in a society, it should also be modified; this concept is not fully grasped by the older generations of