Stereotypes And Backgrounds In 'The Raisin In The Sun'

In A Raisin In the Sun Lorraine Hansberry uses everyday objects-a plant, money, and a home to symbolize a family's struggle to deal with racism and oppression in their everyday lives, as well as to exemplify their dreams. She begins with a vivid description of the family's weary, small, and dark apartment in Chicago's ghetto Southside during the 1950s. The Youngers are an indigent African-American family who has few choices in their white society. Each individual of the Younger family has a separate dream-Beneatha wants to become a doctor, Walter wants to open a liquor store, and Ruth and Mama want a new and better home. The Youngers struggle to accomplish these dreams throughout the play, and a major aspect of their happiness and

In Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” he discusses the idea of unfulfilled dreams and their plausible outcomes using symbolism and imagery. He initially describes a “deferred” dream as a sun-dried raisin, depicting the dream originally as a fresh grape that now has dried up and “turned black” (Jemie 63). This idea provides Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun with its basic foundation, for it is a play about a house full of unfulfilled dreams. As the poem goes on, Hughes depicts the idea of a deferred dream as something rotten or gone bad. According to Onwuchekwa Jemie, this may be an allusion to the American Dream and its empty promises (Jemie 64).

A man named Langston Hughes once said, “ I swear fo the lord, I still can’t see, why democracy means, everybody but me”. This is an occurring idea throughout the Play and Novel A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, and is something the character Beneatha experiences in every aspect of her life. Whether it be racism, sexism, or her social class, she never can escape the fact that democracy is what she wants her life to be like, but she is trapped where she currently stands.

A Raisin In The Sun, is a realist drama play, that takes place in the South Side of Chicago, between 1945 and 1959. The play is about the,”Youngers”, an African American family who struggles with economic problems and racial discrimination. The play starts out in the “Younger’s” apartment, a small two bedroom place with worn out furniture. Ruth, an African woman who serves as a protagonist who lives in the apartment with her husband Walter, the main protagonist, and son Travis. Mama, who is Walter’s mother lives there as well with her second daughter Beneatha. They start arguing about the check Walter’s father has left behind after his death. Beneatha suggests that Mama should take it, but Walter suggests they should use it to start a liquor business. Mama disagrees and wants to buy her dream home. After everyone leaves the home, Mama and Ruth talk about the money, while discussing Ruth faints. She goes to see a doctor and gets told that she is pregnant. She is scared, because they can barely afford what they have and plans to abort. Meanwhile, Walter gets a call from his friend Willy who wants to partner up and start the business, he later finds out about Ruth’s pregnancy and gets mad for her decision to abort. The check later arrives and Mama announces that she has used it to buy a house. Everyone is happy about finding a better place, except for Walter. Mama decides to give Walter the remaining money, for the business, but turns out that Willy, his partner runs away

The play by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, presents an African-American family living in poverty in the 1950’s. The family receives ten thousand dollars from deceased Mr. Younger’s insurance; the money is supposed to be distributed in buying a house, Beneatha’s education, and Walter’s liquor store investment. However, Walter invests wrongly and loses more than half of the money, forcing Beneatha to consider moving to Africa to pursue an education. Beneatha Younger’s struggle with segregation while pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor demonstrates that education can be obtained with determination and discipline.

Every family deals with issues. No matter where you were born, how you were raised, how little or how much money you have, we all face issues within the relationships of our family. Some of the issues grow and get worse or better as time goes by, or as we get older. They may harm, destroy or bring the family together. In A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry, the Younger family faces struggles of race, family and social issues. These issues are not directed towards a specific individual, in the family but dealt with entirely as a family.

The play A Raisin in the Sun illustrates the social and economic pressure that is placed on the Younger family, especially Beneatha who aspires to become a doctor at the time where not many women could even imagine such aspirations. The Younger family's daughter Beneatha is an outspoken intelligent member who raises the argument for the other side of the spectrum at all times. Beneatha is aspiring to become a doctor and has some hope that some of the money from her father's social insurance cheque would help go to her medical school. The pressure of being lower middle class severely affects the relationships of the Younger family as Walter, Beneatha's older brother shows no regard for his sister as he sees her as the only one in the house not

Throughout the play A Raisin in the Sun by Larraine Hansberry, one theme is persistent and that is the theme of manhood. Manhood has the ability to be defined in many different ways depending on the person and the situations that they currently face. This statement parallels the play as each man in the story has a different idea manhood and how they should carry themselves. This play also brings in the idea that manhood can change within oneself to accommodate a new situation. The three main ideas of manhood in the play stem from two characters, one idea from Joseph Asagai, and the others from Walter Lee Younger. Joseph Asagai’s definition of manhood is being close to one’s roots and being able to better one’s community. Walter Lee Younger’s begins the play believing manhood is being able to provide for your family and later in the play it switches to being able to protect and stand up for your family.

Occupation and domestic behaviors play a major role in gender responsibilities in 1950s United States and 21st century South Korea. In Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha Younger dreams to become a medical doctor. However, due to her race and gender expectation, she “deferred” her goals. Walter says, “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ’bout messing ’round with sick people—then go be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be quiet...” (Act 1, Scene 1). Women in the 1950s were not expected to work; their duty was to do housework and raise children. Additionally, regardless of race, doctor was a male-dominant profession, which limited and prevented her from achieving

“Enough of this assimilationist junk!” (Page 39) A quote by Beneatha Younger in the play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” written by Lorraine Hansberry. In the play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” there is a lot of social commentary. Social commentary meaning, a use of rhetorical means to provide commentary on issues in a society. The most repetitive commentary of Hansberry’s play was how African Americans attempted to assimilate into white culture with hopes to gain equality, respect, and to fit in with the high population of caucasian people. Although, by assimilating into caucasian culture and society, African Americans were loosing their own African heritage. The commentary of African Americans assimilating was shown in several of the characters in the play such as, Beneatha Younger and George Murchison. Another character, Joseph Asagai, also spoke several times of how African Americans were trying to assimilate into white culture.

The major theme of the play A Raisin in the Sun that stood out to me was racism. The Younger family are african american and living in the 1950’s, where separation of colored people from white people was most prevalent. During this time, black people were legally supposed to be treated as equal, yet white people proceeded to do everything they could make them feel unwelcome everywhere they went. Everyone in the Younger house has low paying jobs working for white people, not even at a real business. Ruth cleans white people’s houses, Walter drives white people around, and Lena watches white people’s kids for them. They are looked down on by society so much that they look down on themselves. They call themselves negroes and colored men and women but not in a good way. Walter tells his wife that all colored women are the same and do nothing for their colored men. They think so low of themselves because of the color of their skin and it is obvious based on how they act around the house. They would read about black families being mistreated in the papers and hear about it while at work. Even George, a suitor of Beneatha, mentions how insignificant black people are and how he does not respect african culture or Beneatha’s naturally curly hair, even though he is a black man himself. The biggest moment where racism was present was when Mr. Linder came to their house to tell them about their neighborhood.

In summary, this course has really educated my view of being a teacher as well as being able to interact with today’s diverse and fluctuating educational setting. Therefore, the discussions were very good ways in understanding how

I believe this class has educated me for my current and future students. It was abstract, yet outside the normal expectation of a classroom. Multi-diverse in strategies, thought processes, and these are toosl I can utilize to aid my students comprehension and social development skills. Taking this class made me come out of my shell more, not completely but having to toss out my thoughts and my opinions without thinking about what others reactions would be was enlightening, and exciting to the soul. Some topics for me were hard to converse on because judgments still exist, in my opinion. A good example of this is why African Americana can call Caucasians white people, yet we cannot call them black people without offending them. I was not sure what the other classmates were going to say and I hate confrontation so it is easier to remain quiet on the subject. One day I hope to express my opinions without fear of judgment. Everyone in class started a topic and discussed it in a respectful, honesty nice and caring way, even if they agreed or disagreed on the topic of discussion, yet that fear of judgment was always in the back of my mind. I participated everyday no matter what the issue was racism, race, gender, class, culture, ethical dilemmas in today’s society, education, and our knowledge of life. All the things we may or may not believe in. These conversations are methods and tools that I can use in my future conversations with superiors, peers and students. Having

In the play, A Raisin in the Sun, written by Hansberry, there is an African American family, during the 1930’s in Chicago. They are poor and usually get in an argument about money or a new house. This paper is being written to show a family that has close to nothing, how they want to have everything, how they want to recreate their lives together. “ Though people have come to America for a variety of reasons, most have come for opportunity. From its very beginning, America has been viewed as a place where you can recreate yourself. No matter who you are, there is a sense that you can come here and become something different,something new, something better.” (“ The American Dream ”) This play represents this because each character has a dream. Those characters are Mama, Ms. Bennie, Mrs. Ruth, Mr. Walter. Their dreams include the same thing, but have a different meaning behind them. Each has a more use than the other.

Over the course of this paper, I will analyze two pivotal scenes from A Raisin in the Sun, and discuss how the conscious decisions made by the actors display the different themes of this play. The two particular scenes I have chosen can best display the power dynamic between Walter Lee and his grandma, representative of a struggle between old and new, for while Walter is part of a younger, risk-taking generation his mother is from a much more cautious generation just freed from slavery.