...Lorraine Hansberry Discussion Forum: A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, takes the audience on a journey of self discovery and a solidifying of the family unit. The play depicts the life of the Younger’s; an African American family living in the Southside of Chicago in the 1950’s, embattling poverty, the dissolution of family harmony, and the pursuance of individual dreams. It is in the pursuit of those dreams that the control within the family dynamic changes as the play progresses. In the first scene of the play, the Younger’s address the manner in which a $10,000 life insurance policy will be appropriated. These funds are dispersed due to the death of Lena’s husband. Lena, as the matriarch of the family, envisions using the money to buy a...
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...Symbolism is when the author uses a character or an object to add a deeper understanding of the story. Even a tedious work of literature can be roused when symbols are applied. The 1959s play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry comes from the poem “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes. The Younger’s are an impoverished family who lives on the Southside of Chicago during the time of World War II and escapes poverty through the $10,000 insurance check followed by Big Walter’s death. Considering the poem what Langston Hughes wrote about, the dream discussed is most likely to differ due to the American Dream of success and wealth. Mama’s plant, the eggs, and the apartment represent symbols in the book that represents the struggle of achieving...
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...A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is the first broadway play written by a black woman. The play is about the dreams of Younger family, a black family who lives in south side of Chicago and the obstacles of making their dreams come true during the Segregation era. The title of Hansberry's play comes from a line of a Langston Hughes poem "Harlem". In his poem, Hughes asks the audience what will happen if we defer or lost our dream. “ Will it dry? Will it rot? Will it fester? Will it sag? Or will it explode?” With her play A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry tries to answer Hughes' questions in his poem. After reading Langston Hughes' biography, we know that Langston Hughes works very hard to reach his success. He grabs every opportunity...
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...We live in a world where money affects pride, how people view themselves, and fulfillment of dreams, as well as many more individualistic goals. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin In The Sun, money affects the Younger family rather significantly. Each member of the Younger family has their own dream but each one is fueled by money, or even fueled by a need for money. These dreams are especially important to the Younger family as they are an impoverished family with desires to fulfill the American dream. Lorraine Hansberry leaves us with the idea that in life dreams and money exist to feed and build off each other, and that dreams and money are equally as important to achieve not only a money-oriented American ideal but happiness. Lorraine...
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...A Raisin in the Sun is a play surrounding the life of a black working class family in Chicago. The name of the play is taken from a Langston Hughes called “A Dream Deferred”. The poem describes the possible outcomes of dreams that are cast aside and forgotten. This poem relates the Lorraine Hansberry’s play, as A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the dreams of the family and how society impacts and defers their dreams. The protagonist, Walter Younger, strives to achieve the American dream; however, his economic standing, his race, and his family defer his dreams. Walter Younger dreams of becoming a wealthy entrepreneur so that he can drive his family out of poverty. However, economic circumstance interferes with his dream. In the beginning of...
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...This research paper attempts to elucidate how each character in the play A Raisin in the Sun written in 1959 by Lorraine Hansberry wants to achieve a dream which represents certain characteristics in common with the American Dream. Furthermore, this paper seeks to reveal to what extent aspects of the American Dreams, such as the ideal of justice or equality between the races, have been fulfilled by analyzing how these aspects are presented in the play. The Younger family is living in Chicago and is facing financial problems as well as social problems such as discrimination. As Mama’s husband died the family receives 10.000$ insurance money, which gives each family member the opportunity to fulfill their dream. Mama herself wants to buy a new house for the family, her daughter pursues the dream of becoming a doctor and her son Walter wants to open a liquor store. However, the fact that Walter’s wife Ruth is pregnant complicates the situation. Mama eventually decides to buy a new house in a white neighborhood and entrusts Walter with the rest of the money, but he loses all the money through a fraud, although he should have left some money to fund Beneatha’s education. Eventually, at the end of the drama, Mr. Lindner offers money to buy the Youngers out of their new house, but Walter stands up against him and declines the offer....
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...Authors often use literary devices to add more meaning and emphasis to their piece. Some of these devices are metaphors, flashbacks, and symbols. Symbolism is an object or an idea that has a representation beyond the literal meaning of the object, which adds more meaning and emotion to the piece. Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, features various examples of symbolism, and those symbols help support the theme. The window, the light, and the plant are all key symbols that combine to relate the play to the theme, which is to never give up on a dream. A Raisin in the Sun features the Youngers, an African American family who struggle with poverty in Southside Chicago during the 1950s. The family is expecting a life insurance...
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...In Lorraine Hansberry’s book “Raisin in the Sun”, the character of Mama demonstrates the difficulties of motherhood where mothers both have to bring up their children while also letting them be themselves. Mama, a strong willed and tireless woman, cares for her children everyday and dreams of a life where they can thrive. As Mama has dreams for her children, my mom also has similar dreams for me. Even though my mom and Mama have different methods of bringing up their children, they both prepare them for the world while struggling to accept letting them be themselves. My mom and Mama both want to equip their children for life but they have polar approaches to doing so. Mama has a strong personality which she uses as an iron fist to raise her...
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...“ Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before,” (Yeats). In this drama we see characters devolve from difficult challenges in their life. All of the challenges faced through out the play brought the family closer. In A Raisin In The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, The theme of conquering challenges in order to reach a dream is shown through character development of Walter, Beneatha and Mama. In Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun, Walter Younger transforms from a selfish impractical dream of running a liquor store, to becoming the respected patriarch of his family. In the beginning of Act 1, Walter explains his desire to open a liquor store. He says, “This morning, I was...
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...When Lorraine Hansberry wrote her famous play A Raisin In The Sun back in 1959 which is a period of time after the second world war, she addressed many topics and problems that the Americans and especially African American people were facing in their lives. One of the major concept that she brought to her play is the concept of home and what it meant and symbolized to African Americans back in those times. The play gave the readers an idea of how the concept of home was essential to African Americans. When the movie came out, it complement the idea by providing visual images to the audience which helped them better understand. To them, home wasn’t just a place that they can live in, it represented equality that they achieved by overcome racial...
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...In the story “A Raisin in the Sun” Walters dream of owning a Liquor take a negative impact on his life. Walter becomes greedy and violent and these factors don’t only affect him but also affected the family as a whole. Walter is an aggressive man of the house in “Raisin in the Sun”. Walter, being an alcoholic, wants to start a liquor store with the ten thousand dollars the got from the insurance company. He saw it as an investment to make more money to live a better life. He wanted to give his son, Travis, a better childhood. Also, he wanted to open a Liquor store because he was desperate to get a better job. He was sick of being a chauffeur for a white man. When he saw his wife lack in support for his ideas. Walter saw this as an opportunity...
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...I am writing this report for Ms. Williams in the class Foundations of Medicine. This report is about the book “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry. This book has 151 pages and was published by “Vintage Books. It has been published multiple times including the years of 1958, 1986, 1959,1966,1984,1987 and 1988. The book design was created by Merrick Hamilton. I chose to read this book because it expands my knowledge of “The American Dream and how African Americans lives were like in the late 50’s early 60’s. The Main Character in this book is Walter Lee Younger. He is a determined married man who seems to think he is superior among others in his family. He wants to achieve the “American Dream”, which in his case is to be “The Boss” (more specifically an entrepreneur). He tends to think big and, he gets angry when people don’t understand him. His place as the main character is easily shown by his confidence and determination....
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...A Raisin in the Sun is a book written by Lorraine Hansberry. It is about a poor African American family getting a chance to make it out of their poor lifestyle conditions with an insurance check of a passed loved one. The Younger family lives in a small apartment with only two bedrooms with five people living in it. Each of the family members have their own ideas on how to spend the insurance check money. Two characters that influence this plot the most would be Mama and Walter. Mama is the one who is receiving the insurance check for the passing away of her husband. Mama is caring of her family, especially her grandson Travis. As soon as Mama receives the insurance check of ten thousand dollars, she goes out and buys a house for her little...
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...In a “Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, Walter’s dream of owning a liquor store is somewhat achieved because Walter changes to fit the needs of his family which results in Walter not owning his own liquor business. Walter is a passionate and ambitious African-American young man with big dreams. He hopes to be economically secure and rich by opening up his own liquor store. Walter fights against the misery of poverty and racial injustice while trying to convince his mother about the change in society “No-it was always money, Mama we just didn’t know about it” (Act 1.Scene 2.Pg 74). Walter argues with his mother about how “it was always money” and the role that money plays in society to go up the social ladder. In addition, his mother...
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...The play A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry is about, an African American family struggling to survive. The reason this is important is this because, the people in this family have dreams of their own; but, they have an issue with money. Since they are struggling with money not everyone's dream can come true. The reason this paper is being written is to tell about each person's dream and how it is presented through The American Dream. Each of these characters affect society in different ways; they change it, fix it, and create new ways in life. In A Raisin in the Sun, Mama’s dream is to buy a nice house for Travis to live in and that can’t get taken out from under them; so, her dream is to give a better life to Travis and the rest. The reason for that is she wants Travis to be able to have a home when he gets older. (Act 2) Beneatha's dream is to go to college to be a doctor. The reason for that is, when she was younger one day her and some friends were sledding down porch steps and that day her friend got really hurt, when she watched as the ambulance took him to the hospital and found out he was going to live that was when she decided to be a doctor. (Act 3)...
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