Social Issues In A Raisin In The Sun

The world stereotypes rich people as rude, stuck up and selfish. Ever wonder why? Studies from Yale, The New York Times, TED and more have concluded, money changes everything. Whether it’s attitude, morals or values, money can affect and change all aspects of someone’s life. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a theme showing this claim clearly.

The play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry debuted on Broadway in 1959, and the movie was made in 2008. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about the Younger family, the fifth generation of lower-class African-Americans living in Chicago’s Southside. They are faced with problems such as racial discrimination, poverty, and conflicting dreams. As the family decides on how to spend the insurance check of $10,000 from Walter’s father’s death, these problems cause many conflicts to rise. Reading the 1959 play and the 2008 movie, I have realized certain similarities and differences in how the story plays out.

In the play Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry takes place on the southside of Chicago where Walter and his family are racially profiled and show us how the survive throughout their struggles. The central struggles for the younger family in their search for the American dream is mostly poverty and being racially profiled against for their actions. Hansberry challenges the traditional gender roles and issues of dominance throughout the play when Mama gives Walter lee the rest of the money at the end of the play. He becomes all excited and was supposed to save some for himself and put the rest of the money to Beneatha 's education. Instead, he gave all that money to Willy another character in the play which later on that he stole from him.

“A Raisin in the Sun,” written by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, was the first play ever produced on Broadway by an African-American woman and was considered ground-breaking for it’s time. Titled after Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” sometimes known as “A Dream Deferred,” the play and the subsequent film adaptations are honest examinations of race, family, poverty, discrimination, oppression and even abortion in urban Chicago after WWII. The original play was met with critical praise, including a review by Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times where he wrote, “For A Raisin in the Sun is a play about human beings who want, on the one hand, to preserve their family pride and, on the other hand, to break out of the poverty that seems to be their fate. Not having any axe to grind, Miss Hansberry has a wide range of topics to write about-some of them hilarious, some of them painful in the extreme.” The original screen adaptation released in 1961 was highly acclaimed in its own right, and was chosen in 2005 for preservation in the United States of America National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its cultural and historical significance.

Walter uses his male privilege to put Beneatha down. Beneatha battles being underprivileged at home and in society by defying odds and choosing her own path. According to the matrix of domination, Beneatha being an African American woman shows that in order for her to have full privilege she has to deal with both the isms. The social construction of difference has produced racism and sexism and connected them and society has used them to justify

It shows this because Walter diminishes his sisters Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor by making a misogynist comment in which insinuates on her settling on being a nurse due to a doctor clearly being an often male dominant profession. Furthermore, Walter is deluded by greed on opening a liquor store which causes him to have no regard for the feelings or desires of others. Clearly, the central idea of the text is that in trying to achieve a dream it can bring out a person selfish tendency because people tend to disparage others dreams in order to attain theirs. The author 's use of conflict is important to the developing the central idea that oneself can become selfish when trying to obtain the American dream because it creates tension.

His sister, Beneatha, wants to become a doctor and Walter isn't very supportive of her decision. Walter's wife, Ruth, is the recipient of the majority of Walter's anger and sexist remarks. In Act 1 Scene 1, the audience learns that Beneatha, a colored woman, wants to become a doctor and attends medical school. Beneatha and Walter begin to banter with each other about Mama’s money.

In Act 1, Beneatha’s quest to find her personal identity is seen in the way she expresses herself, her ambitions, her roots and the way she deviates from what is acceptable in her family. She tries to find ways to express herself such as trying different hobbies. In the past, Beneatha has been a part of a play-acting group, horseback-riding club, and in Act 1 starts guitar lessons (47). She also has the ambition to become a doctor which is looked down upon by her brother, Walter Lee (38). Additionally, her African roots are important to her search for identity.

She was not like other young women that would be housewives or maids at her age but instead is independent. Looking after herself and making more of a life for herself, she attends school, tries to play guitar, and looks for a love interest. This breaks the stereotype of a “normal” woman who is a housewife or maid and shows Beneatha is different. Therefore, Beneatha overcomes this criticism of her “unnatural ways”, and proceeds to make her life successful.

Beneatha dreams to be a doctor, which is a male-dominated profession. She says, “I am going to be a doctor and everybody around here better understand that!” (Hansberry 33). This shows her feminist attitude in the play when Beneatha takes a largely optimistic stance when facing troubles of entering a male-dominated profession, implying that she is a ‘non-conformist’. Additionally, Beneatha refuses to “just get married and be quiet” (Hansberry 22), as her chauvinistic brother, Walter Lee, expects her to be.

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun presents the rise of feminism in America in the 1960s. Beneatha Younger, Lena Younger (Mama) and Ruth Younger are the three primary characters displaying evidences of feminism in the play. Moreover, Hansberry creates male characters who demonstrate oppressive attitudes towards women yet enhance the feministic ideology in the play. A Raisin in the Sun is feminist because, with the feminist notions displayed in the play, women can fulfil their individual dreams that are not in sync with traditional conventions of that time.

Hardships of the Youngers In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters of Mama, Walter ,and Beneatha are faced with hardships associated with their dreams being destroyed by discriminatory housing,racial inequality and lack of support from her family towards her education. In the play all the characters have some kind of dream. Mama wants to get a house for the family, Walter wants to have money to provide for his family and plans to do that with a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to become a doctor. Beneatha is going to school and at the same time she’s trying to discover herself,but her family is not supportive of this.

Reader Response: 3 “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, is a play about a black families experience in 1950s South Side Chicago. The story revolves around what happens to the family when Lena Younger, the matriarch of the family, receives a ten thousand dollar life insurance check upon the death of her husband. Everyone from the family has different plans for what they want to do with the money. Lena Younger serves as the head of the family. She is Walter and Beneatha’s caring mother so they and Ruth call her Mama.

The main characters of this play are Travis, Ruth, Beneatha, Walter and Lena. Travis is the son of Walter and Ruth is the wife of Walter. Beneatha is Walter’s sister and Lena is Walter’s mother. Walter Lee Younger is the protagonist because he is the man of the house and

Just within the recent decades, men and women started to fight against the gender stereotypes and started to challenge their roles in a family and in the society. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, portrays the lives of African–Americans during the 1950s. Lorraine Hansberry, a writer and a social activist, reinforced the traditional gender roles, especially female’s, by depicting how the Youngers interact and how they act in an economical struggle. Throughout the play, A Raisin in the Sun, she uses Walter Lee Younger, Ruth Younger and Lena Younger to reinforce the traditional role of fathers, wives and mothers within a family.