Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

1309 Words6 Pages
A Raisin in the Sun/Analysis “A Raisin in the Sun” received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the year. Lorraine Hansberry, author of the novel, is the youngest playwright and first black writer to win the award. She is credited with being one of the first black playwright to create realistic black character for the stage. Lorraine Hansberry died at very young age of forty four from cancer in nineteen sixty-five “Her life inspired Nina Simone to write the song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" and has inspired many others to wonder what she would have written if she had been blessed with long years.” In “A raisin in the Sun”, the setting takes place in the Youngers’ apartment on south side Chicago during the 1950s. The…show more content…
However, as the play unfold they gain love and care for each other. The Younger family only cared about money. The plot of the play is that the mother is waiting on a check from the life insurance to arrive. The family is disagreeing about what is needed to be done with the money. The climax occurs when Walter takes the money without his family approval and invests into the liquor store. Later he finds out that one of his investment partner stole the money, and to make matters worse, no one knows where he went. The characters serve different roles in the play. First there is Walter, who is the father. He is the one that provides for his family as a chauffeur for a white family. Then there is Ruth, which is the backbone of the family. She tries to look out for her family. She cook for her son, clean the house, and help with other things. She does all that in addition to going to work. The mother’s role is Walter mom and she is the one in control of making the house decision for the family. Beneatha is the sister of Walter, and she is going to school to become a doctor. Last but not least there is Travis, which is the son of Walter and Ruth. He plays the role of a very…show more content…
Each character in “A Raisin in the Sun” has a dream that needs to be reached, but it seems that the more they try the harder it gets. The characters’ background and culture makes it an issue of race and poverty. Lorraine Hansberry grew up in a black neighborhood on Chicago south side. Chicago at the time did not have legal segregation, but there was still wide spread self-segregation. Which means community were segregated not by force but by choose. She experienced discrimination in school, work, and neighborhood. Chicago was divided sharply into white and black neighborhoods as result of past segregation. The Hansberry family is one of the first black families to move into a white neighborhood. It is not easy for the Hansberry family to accomplish their dream. They faced threats, discrimination, hate, and even legal action. Hansberry father brought their case all the way to Supreme Court. Some might be familiar with the Hansberry vs Lee case that on November thirteenth nineteen forty. It states that whites cannot bar African American from a neighborhood. This conflict is on actual things that happened in her life that was brought in “A Raisin in the Sun” and in a lot of her writing style. Lorraine Hansberry writing style is often autobiographical in nature. As we can see from what has already said about her background and her very own family. They had to fight to
Open Document