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.
Lorraine was born May 19, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. She was the youngest of four children by seven years. Her father was a real estate broker and her mother was a school teacher. In 1938, her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, moved the family to Washington Park a subdivision on Chicago’s south side. By moving to this neighborhood they violated a restrictive covenant and their white neighbors were very upset and started violently acting out towards them. There were multiple legal efforts to force the Hansberry's to move and in 1940 it worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling restrictive covenants illegal. The family eventually did move by court order. Lorraine’s childhood gave her the inspiration for her very successful play, A Raisin in the Sun.
Lorraine Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison studying painting, she eventually changed her major to writing but then dropped out of school after two years in 1950. She moved to New York City and The New School for Social Research. She then got a job working for Paul Robertson’s newspaper the Freedom from 1950 to 1953. During this time she also worked as a waitress and cashier to make extra money and wrote during her free time. In 1956 she quit her job and became a full time writer. A Raisin in the Sun was written a...
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Ingle, Zachary. "'White Fear' And The Studio System: A Re-Evaluation Of Hansberry's Original Screenplay Of A Raisin In The Sun.(Lorraine Hansberry)(Critical Essay)." Literature-Film Quarterly 3 (2009): 184.Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
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From a modern day point of view, one would deem it not viable to confuse the identity of Martin Guerre and Arnaud du Tilh for any great...
New York in 1950, she held many jobs, while perfecting her skill as a writer. Hansberry
The Web. The Web. 02 Feb. 2014. 4. What is the difference between a.. Shel Silverstein. The Poetry Foundation.
Hansberry, Lorraine. "A Raisin In The Sun." Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 1771-830. Print.
The setting in which Lorraine Hansberry was raised was a crucial to the development of several of her plays, particularly A Raisin in the Sun. On May 19, 1930, Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois to Carl and Nannie Hansberry. Both of her parents were known for their work in regards to civil rights and social equality. Also, her great grandfather William Hansberry, a slave that could read and write that was freed when...
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.
Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930. She grew up as the youngest in her family. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a real estate broker. They eventually moved into a white part of town where they were persecuted and were ordered by the court to move. Their case went all the way to the supreme court. Hansberry decided to attend the university of Wisconsin to study painting, but quickly changed to study writing. After two years she dropped out and decided to move to New York. In New York she started working for a newspaper, she worked as a part time waitress, and a cashier. She still wrote in her free time until she quit all her jobs to focus just on writing. Around 1957 she wrote the play, A Crystal Stair, which was changed to A Raisin In the Sun. In 1963 she became a strong supporter of civil rights. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died on January 12, 1965.
It becomes obvious to the reader that the racial tension Hansberry experienced growing up reflected on the way her literature is written. Moss and Wilson state that, “Lorraine Hansberry’s South Side childhood, particularly her father’s battle to move into a white neighborhood, provided the background for the events in the play” (314). Hansberry experienced many of the situations she placed the Younger family at first hand. Hansberry’s father, Carl Hansberry, was put in a similar circumstance when he moved his family into a predominately white community at the opposition of the white neighbors. He eventually won a civil rights case on discrimination. Speaking of the United States, Adler states, “A Raisin in the Sun is a moving drama about securing one’s dignity within a system that discriminates against, even enslaves, its racial minorities” (824).
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a dramatic play written in 1959. The play is about an African American family that lived on 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. Hansberry faces housing discrimination due to her race, which affects her family.
In the play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry uses the characterization of Walter to show
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.
25 Apr. 2011. The. Hansberry, Lorraine. A. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: French Publishing, 1984.
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about segregation, triumph, and coping with personal tragedy. Set in Southside Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the individual dreams of the Younger family and their personal achievement. The Younger's are an African American family besieged by poverty, personal desires, and the ultimate struggle against the hateful ugliness of racism. Lena Younger, Mama, is the protagonist of the story and the eldest Younger. She dreams of many freedoms, freedom to garden, freedom to raise a societal-viewed equal family, and freedom to live liberated of segregation. Next in succession is Beneatha Younger, Mama's daughter, assimilationist, and one who dreams of aiding people by breaking down barriers to become an African American female doctor. Lastly, is Walter Lee Younger, son of Mama and husband of Ruth. Walter dreams of economic prosperity and desires to become a flourishing businessman. Over the course of Walter's life many things contributed to his desire to become a businessman. First and foremost, Walter's father had a philosophy that no man should have to do labor for another man. Being that Walter Lee was a chauffeur, Big Walter?s philosophy is completely contradicted. Also, in Walter?s past, he had the opportunity to go into the Laundromat business which he chose against. In the long run, he saw this choice was fiscally irresponsible this choice was. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Lee's dreams, which are his sole focus, lead to impaired judgement and a means to mend his shattered life.
In the book A Raisin in the Sun, the time period is set in 1955. A time in America where African Americans still dealt with a constant struggle between them and the rest of the country. It touches on subjects that were very sensitive especially at the time the work was released. Even though the setting of the book was in the north, Lorraine Hansberry seemed to want to show that things weren’t that much better in the north than they were in the south at that time. Segregation was still being implemented in the law system, and there was a missing sense of equality among everyone. It shows that Lorraine Hansberry took what was going on around her environment and portrayed those situations into her work. The three events listed include Rosa Parks
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.