Similarities Between A Raisin In The Sun And A Doll's House

In this essay I will be comparing two playwrights, A Raisin in the Sun and A Doll’s House, to one another. I will also compare the two to modern time and talk about whether or not over time our society has changed any. Each of these plays has a very interesting story line based in two very different time eras. Even though there is an 80 year time gap the two share similar problems and morals, things you could even find now in the year of 2016. In the following paragraphs I will go over the power of time and what we as a society have done to make a change.

A Doll’s House was based in 1879 and it’s a story of a woman being black mailed in order for a man to keep his job. When the woman’s secret is released to her husband after she couldn’t

succeed in keeping the man’s job, she realizes that she hasn’t been living a true life (Isben). She realizes that her whole life she has never had to make an important decision because she has always aloud a man to make it for her, whether it was her late father or her former husband deciding. It was as if she was just their toy they could drag along to make their life seem better, she even goes to refer herself as her father’s little doll ( hence the title of the story). Nora is looked at as Torvald’s wife and nothing more and she thinks nothing of it until the end, she’s even proud to paly such a role (Ibsen).
A Raisin in the Sun is placed in the year 1959 and is a story about a family and the effects money has on them when they are given the inheritance of 10,000 dollars after the passing of Big Walter the husband of Lena Younger and father of Beneatha and Walter Lee Younger.

The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm

candy.
Another problem they face in A Raisin in the Sun is racism; the Younger family is faced with multiple accounts of it throughout the story. At the beginning Ruth feels ill so Mama (Lena) tells her to take the day off, but Ruth states that if she does that her boss will have a fit going on about how her “girl” didn’t come into work and how she needs a replacement (Hansberry). This shows how replaceable and unimportant Ruth’s job was; Ruth Lena and Walter all three have jobs like such. These jobs though were really the only ones African Americans were able to get at the time. A more clearly shown at of racism in the playwright would be when Karl Linder came to talk to the Youngers near the end. He went to their apartment on behalf of the Clybourne Park community and offered to pay the family off so they wouldn’t move into their new home. He said “I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities” (Hansberry). I mean he has clearly just stated that they do not want a black family moving into their neighbor, thinking that it would make the neighborhood worse in some god forsaken way.
During these time periods there was distinct discrimination, whether it is against your race, gender, religion, age, or really anything else; and there still is discrimination today. Sure it has gotten better since then in many ways, but just the fact that there still is discrimination makes it just as bad as it was then. People like to say that over time we have evolved as a culture, but have we truly evolved or just gotten better at hiding our wrongs. There is still hope though for equality in our world I just don’t think it’ll come at a time where we’re still alive, they say history repeats itself let’s just hope discrimination can skip that and just find an end.
So overall you find a few major similarities in the playwrights, things that you can still find today. And though they are not good they are getting better and you could tell that through the 88 year time gap between the two stories that the difference found some progress. People have found their voice and they’re fighting for what’s right, so I have no doubt that discrimination can end and equality can begin we just need to continue to stick together so we can see results.