Timeless Themes A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

One of the most notable plays on the topic of racial minorities and family issues, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, has continued to be popular since it was written in 1959. The play is about an African American family, consisting of five members, who live in Southside Chicago during the post-World-War-Two era. The Younger family is crowded in a tiny, worn, and shabby apartment and they are fairly poor. They never have much surplus money until Walter’s father, and Mama’s husband, died and the family received a life-insurance check for ten thousand dollars. The play follows the family’s journey through the fights and distress that come from suddenly obtaining a large amount of money and the differing opinions on how the money†¦show more content†¦Meanwhile, many white people started moving away from cities and into the suburb areas because of revolutionized housing developments that made standard, suburban homes affordable and the advancement of transportation that allowed people to live farther away from the cities while still enjoying its amenities (Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Andrew Bailey). There were increases in the presence of minorities as they too moved into the congested cities and tensions rose as African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc. competed for the same jobs and housing arrangements (Pacyga). Amiri Baraka observes in her critique, of A Raisin in the Sun, that, â€Å"[f]or many of us it wasand remainsthe quintessential civil rights drama.† Hansberry plays off these tensions in A Raisin in the Sun by having Mama purchase a home in Clyborne Park, a nearby neighborhood which, as Walter expresses, â€Å"Mama, there ain’t no colored folk in Clyborne Park† (Hansberry 1465). After the people in the neighborhood learn that an African American family is going to move into one of the local houses, they send a representative of the Clyborne Park Improvement Assoc iation, Karl Lindner, to attempt to buy the house back from the Youngers. Walter and Ruth are appalled by Lindner’s audacity and promptly tell him no and send him away. Hansberry includes the word â€Å"improvement† in association’s name to emphasize how strongly the neighborhood felt against whom they viewed as inferiorShow MoreRelatedA Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry2035 Words   |  8 PagesLorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a remarkable play written in 1959 by an African American author about an African American family. This time period was in the early days of the modern awakening of civil rights awareness. It was a timely play challenging the then current stereotypical view of a black family by depicting a realistic portrayal of a specific black family with aspirations, hopes, dreams, dignity, and ambition as would be expected from all families regardless of race. TheRead MoreA Raisin in the Sun Essay1752 Words   |  8 PagesA Raisin in the Sun Creativity of Hansberry played a crucial role in the development of African-American drama since the Second World War. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by African-American author which was set on Broadway and was honored by the circle of New York theater critics. Drama of A Raisin in the Sun (1959) brought Hansberry to the Award Society of New York Critics as the best play of the year. A Raisin in the Sun shows the life of an ordinary African-American family which dreamsRead MoreEssay on Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin In The Sun951 Words   |  4 PagesA Raisin in the Sun A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, illustrates the timeless struggle for the furtherance of family values and morals with extreme clarity. The play follows the life of a small black family’s struggle to keep their dreams from tenants to owners alive. These dreams, and the struggles necessary to reach them, as well as coming to terms with the dreams that are out of reach, are the focus and driving force behind this story of every persons struggle to achieve goalsRead MoreAmerican Dream in a Raisin in the Sun4319 Words   |  18 Pagesâ€Å"Harlem† captures the tension between the need for black expression and the impossibility of that expression because of American society’s oppression of its black population. In the poem, Hughes asks whether a â€Å"dream deferred† withers up â€Å"like a raisin in the sun.† His lines confront the racist, dehumanizing attitude prevalent in American society before the civil rights movement of the 1960s that black desires and ambitions were, at best, unimportant and should be ignored, and at worst, should be forcibly