Preview

The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
856 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun
The drama A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry depicts a story of a poor black family’s struggle to escape poverty and fulfill their individual dreams, while residing on the Southside of Chicago. Each member of the Younger family have inspirations, however are deprived of achieving them due to their African-American race. Mama, whom is the matriarch of the family dreams of buying a house for her family in a more decent and refined neighborhood. She believes that living in a new house creates an open door of positivity and opportunity for her family to achieve success and their own dreams. Despite having the motivation and desire to live in a better neighborhood, Mama and her family are faced with the obstacle of being accepted by white …show more content…
He compares himself to other men and says, “Mama sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool-quiet looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking about things… Sitting there talking deals worth millions of dollars… Sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (Hansberry74). Walter envies the sense of comfort and enjoyment of wealth that white people have as they live their lives. He notices that the same white men making deals are the same as him (even around the same age), only different because of their skin color. Walter questions why the white men are employed, living well and are not going through the same struggling and suffering he experiences when they are both men and the same age. This emphasizes the fact that white men are privileged and have a greater opportunity of achieving the American Dream or their own personal desires simply because of their race. Walter later realizes the disadvantage he is at in fulfilling his dreams, being classified as a black man. The drama A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Dream Deferred” as it rhetorically asks the reader if a dream “dries up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run.” In this case, the Younger family’s dreams dried up like a raisin in the sun as they were unable to fulfill their dreams because

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The play a Raisin in the Sun is a play written by Lorraine Hansberry. This story is about an African American family living in Southside Chicago. In the story, the family goes through many hardships especially when it comes to money. The Younger family lives in an overcrowded apartment which has very little room for all of them. There is a $10,000 check coming from the insurance company for Walter Lee’s dad’s death. He is the man of the house now and is determined to provide a better life for him and his family. Which he figures out at the end that money is not everything.…

    • 519 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dreams change whether we want them to or not, but how might dreams change if they are ignored? Langston Hughes describes a dream deferred in his poem, "Harlem: A Dream Deferred", "What happens to a dream deferred?”; “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" He compares a dream deferred to various concepts. In connection to the play, written by Lorraine Hansberry, "A Raisin in the Sun" the Younger family, an impecunious African-American family, struggle in achieving their dreams, having to postpone them. Although the Younger family each face the same challenge, character Walter Younger is unalike the rest as his dreams deferred impact his personality and his actions. I argue that Walter Younger best illustrates the central theme of Hughes’…

    • 134 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In a segregated 1950s Chicago, a small African-American family lives in a small 3 room apartment in a crowded apartment building. Award-winning A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, features Walter as a leader-to-be in this historically accurate playwright. The household consists of Mama, Walter’s wife and sister, Ruth and Beneatha, and Walter’s son Travis. Walter, the main contributor to the income of the household, and held responsible even though he is not seen as the leader or in…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Albert Einstein once said “Try not to become a man of success rather try to become a man of value.” A Raisin In the Sun was written by Lorraine Hansberry in nineteen fifty nine.The play explores the struggles of an African American family to achieve their dreams. In the play Walter Lee Younger Jr. the son of Mama(Lena) evolves throughout the trials and tribulations the family faces in the play.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The play "A Raisin In The Sun", by Lorraine Hansberry is a perfect embodiment of the Langston Hughes' poem "A Raisin In the Sun" because each of the characters experiences the reality of their dreams being too big to achieve in a country dominated by the white Americans. One of the earliest and most obvious examples of this is Walter Younger, who feels misunderstood throughout most of the play. For Walter, everything has always been about money and he believes that wealth is the solution to everything. His dream was to invest the ten thousand dollars, that was left for his mother from his late father, into an alcohol business with a man named Willy. Throughout the play, no one listens to his dream of investing or makes an effort to understand where he's coming from. When he finds out that his mother spent the money on her dream of buying a house, he explodes on everyone and spends the next three days drinking. Eventually his mother pity's him and decides to let him be the man of the house now by leaving him in charge of all of the money that she had left, including Beneatha's college funds. Walter spends all of the money on the investment - only to have it be stolen by Willy. As a result, Walter grows as a person because, though he is moneyless on account of his mistake, he stands up to the white man who tried to pay them not to move into their new home - located in an all-white neighborhood. Thus, based off of Langston Hughes' poem, when one asks the question "what happens to a dream deferred?", the answer that I drew from this play is that a dream deferred will make the targeted individual stronger - just like Walter. This same answer can be found in Beneatha's case because she lost all of her college funds due to Walter's poor investment; as a result, she…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, is a play set in the South Side of Chicago, in the late 1950’s. The play follows the lives of a poor, urban, African-American family, the Younger’s, during a period of heightened racial discrimination in the United States. In this passage, the matriarch of the family Lena Younger, also known as Mama, is arguing with her adult son Walter, about what to do with a windfall to be acquired from a life insurance policy on her deceased husband. This quote reflects the ideological differences between the two generations, about what is important in life.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, embodies the struggles of a black family in the 1960’s living in Chicago. Everyone in the Younger family seems to have an ambitious dream that they are all trying to achieve with insurance money earned by Big Walter. Walter Lee Younger, the man of the family, is a motivated man that is unhappy with his job as a chauffer. He has big dreams of opening up a liquor store to become a businessman so he can diminish his family’s poverty and live a normal life. In the course of this play we have learned that Walter Lee Younger can be very short tempered and make foolish decisions by not thinking them through as well as not being able to accept responsibility, but still shows love…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I Have a Dream,” says Martin Luther King Jr. in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. This is the day when people listen and understand the horrors of segregation and attempt to end it. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” the Younger family is going through the daily trauma of being an African American family during the 1940s to 1950s. The family of five live in a cramped apartment in Southside Chicago and they wait for the $10,000 check from the health insurance to arrive. As time goes by, the family focuses on the money instead of committing to their dreams, and those dreams ultimately become deferred dreams. The effects of deferred dreams on the Younger family include; miscommunication, and under appreciation.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living on the South Side of…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is realistic fiction in which the play's title and characters represent the play's themes. The play focused on black Americans struggles to reach the American Dream of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness during the 1950’s and 1960’s. the idea of everyone having a the chance to achieve a better life should exist. Hansberry created her title using a line from Langston Hughes poem “ A Dream Deferred”. The original poem was written in 1951 about Harlem. Hughes line from the poem claimed that when dreams are deferred they become broken. This meant that they are lost/hopeless. Hughes poem further suggested that when dreams and goals are denied to be pursued people forget about them and put them off.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The American Dream is the freedom given to every person in America, no matter their race, gender, culture, religion, or beliefs and an equal chance at prosperity. The Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, is an African American family living in the 20th century in a cramped apartment, dealing with racial prejudice and discrimination. During A Raisin in the Sun, the Younger family struggles to live in a cramped, overpriced apartment while facing challenges and tension in their new neighborhood; the historical context of Lorraine Hansberry’s play reveals the controversy of segregation.…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, contains many conflicts and prejudice injustices through out the story. It draws your attention to each characters dream, aspirations, and their individual characteristics. A Raisin in the Sun is symbolic, shows Walter’s progress as a dynamic character, the development of Mama’s understanding of herself and her harvest (children) and finally the influences Big Walter had on their lives.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raisin in the Sun

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A Raisin in the Sun is about a African-American family struggling in poverty. The Younger…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chicago is a well known city for being called the“Windiest City”; Chicago is also very well know for their crimes, and equality issues. African Americans and Whites are the two primary races that hold these issues. Within the law, equality between both races has progressed over the years, although their feelings of equality between one another, hold different opinions. Whites and African Americans both have thought about one another through past racial events to drive up opinions against one another. A written play, A Raisin in the Sun, holds the feelings between African American and Whites before it even improved. Since the play, A Raisin in the Sun, racial feelings, for both races, in equality…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thesis: The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry show that there is great struggle in reaching The American Dream.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays