...The theatrical work, A Raisin in the Sun, can be best described as a brilliantly close-to-home rendition of domestic and societal drama. When attempting to identify with the characters of the play, one thing that is very obvious is the relationship of societal pressure placed on the Younger family and how they influence their quality of living. A vast majority of this play takes place within the household, but the reason I mention domestic drama is largely due to the issues faced throughout the work. For the most part, many of the problems faced in this play can easily be found in households today. Problems of weary marriages, low income, and emasculation seem to be very typical stressors in family settings. One large stressor faced in the story, playing off of emasculation, is the family structure within the Younger household. Throughout the play, it is obvious that the Matriarchal structure causes some friction with Walter, as he is the only male in the family and feels an obligation to head the family as his father once did. Time after time he states that he is the man of the household, calling for respect and trying to take responsibility for the well being of the family, but they know that until Lena Younger hands down the torch who the head really is....
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...A Raisin in the Sun is one of a great American plays written by the Lorraine Hanseberry. The play was successful enough to end up on Broadway and it is the play which made Lorraine Hansberry the youngest African American to win New York Critics’ Award. First performance of the play was at Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959. Since her early twenties she moved boundaries in drama and in personal life. She wrote under her initials L.H. for protection since her lesbian identity has been exposed in media. During those times she wrote A Raisin in the Sun, originally called The Crystal Stair. A Raisin in the Sun is a drama about struggling African American family in South Chicago during the early sixties. The play is authentic and the storyline...
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...Kelly Haddix Eng Comp 2 Jason Elznic 04/25/2012 My essay will show how Marxism is portrayed within the two short stories, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Raisin in the Sun. The purpose of this essay is to explain the Marxism role within these two short stories. I will use an academic approach to accomplish this objective. The role of Marxism is portrayed within these two stories, and I will show how Marxism is portrayed and defined by comparing these two short stories. The similarities between the two stories are that both Walter and McMurphy are fighting against a society that is bent on repressing them. Walter with the white community, and McMurphy with the hospital staff at the mental institution, namely Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched represents the controlling party in the mental institution where as the white realtor Mr. Lindner represents the controlling party of the white housing community. According to Dictionary.com the definition of Marxism states that “society is basically the struggle between the social classes.” Randle McMurphy McMurphy showed signs of Marxism’s conflict theory, focusing on the struggles between the classes (nurses and patients).McMurphy violated the norms of society when he was charged with statutory rape and sanctions were imposed, sending him to prison. McMurphy creates a society amongst the patients at the mental institution, which largely affects the structure of the institution. His relationship with the other patients...
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...Jerel Larkins Period 5 A Raisin in the Sun Essay In the book A Raisin in the Sun, the characters go through change. Mama lets Walter become the man of the house or family. Walter grows up and learns how to be responsible for his family. Ruth decides not to get rid of the baby and move into the new house. Mama changes in the story because she lets Walter become the man of the house or family. In the beginning of the story, Mama was in charge. She told everyone what to do or how to act. In the book, Beneatha said “I do not believe in god.” Mama smacked her and told her to repeat “In my mother’s house there is God.” That shows that Mama controlled everyone and everything in the home. Towards the end of the book, she gave Walter the money to pay for Beneatha to go to school and open up his liquor store that he always wanted. That showed that Mama stepped down and let Walter be the man of the family and make the decisions. Walter also goes through a change. In the beginning of the book he was selfish. When Mama received the money, he did not think about anyone else or what anyone else needed. He only thought about himself and opening his liquor store. When they would tell him no or he couldn’t open up his store, he would get angry, go to the bar and get drunk. He did that because he thought that would help him calm down. Throughout the story, he stated to get more mature after Mama gave him the money. He promised Beneatha that she would get the money...
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...A Raisin in the Sun Argument Essay Everyone has to make a decision at some point in their life and while reading A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, one of the main characters named Walter Lee Younger has to make a decision of his own. Walter has to make the decision to take Mr. Linder’s money and not move into their new house or to reject Mr. Linder's offer and move into their new house. Because the Younger’s morals stop them from being paid to not move into the new house, they are correct to not take the money from Linder, since the Younger family works too hard and sacrifices too much to have someone tell them where they can or cannot live and the pride of their family is more important than money. The Youngers worked too...
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...The American Dream, the archetypal notion that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative, is an ideal that most people strive to achieve. Unfortunately, in the past and in modern day, the population that surrounds us has been propelled by conceptions such as racism and gender roles which avert us from obtaining our visions. Classic works of literature including To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and A Raisin in the Sun accurately display a lack of equality and fair treatment in the sharing of wealth and opportunities by incorporating racism and gender roles into the lives if the characters in the novels. The authors of To Kill a Mockingbird,...
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...English 9H A Raisin in the sun Critical Lens Essay Damon Chen May 14, 2015 “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” This is a quote from Helen Keller, the famous American lecturer and writer who was blind and deaf from the age of 19 months. I personally agree with this quote, and I see some similar points on Beneatha, one of the main character in “A Raisin in the sun”. in the story, Beneatha faces two choices, and neither of them is perfect but she must choose one of them. Beneatha Younger is Mama’s daughter and Walter’s sister. Beneatha is an intellectual, Twenty years old African-American woman who attends college and is better educated than the rest of the Younger family. Some of her personal beliefs and views have distanced her from conservative Mama. She dreams of being a doctor and struggles to determine her identity as a well-educated black woman. In the book, she faces two problems: marry a wealthy but arrogant African-American man George Murchison or marry a poor but idealistic Nigerian student Joseph Asagai to follow her dream. George Murchison is a wealthy, African-American man who loves Beneatha. The Youngers approve George, but Beneatha dislikes him, because of his willingness to submit to white culture and forget his African heritage. “Let’s face it baby, your heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts.” He challenges the thoughts and feelings of...
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...A Mother's Dream and a Child's Choice Jennell Osborn Lit/210 - World Literature October 20, 2013 Shannon Green A Mother's Dream and a Child's Choice: A comparison of A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry and Two Kinds, by Amy Tan While it is true that every mother should have a dream for her child, she should never burden him with it because the child will grow up believing he has disappointed or failed her in some way. There is an old Jewish proverb that says, "A slave shows his true character not while enslaved, but when he becomes a master." (Author unknown). In the same way, a child who has not yet become his own person is often enslaved by his mother's dream for him. This comparative essay will attempt to explain how each of the mothers in Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, and Two Kinds, written by Amy Tan, places the burden of their own dreams onto their children, and the impact it had on both Walter and Jing-Mei as adults. Additionally, my research results will explain the trauma a child may suffer when a parent wants their children to reach for dreams, and ambitions not their own. There can be a fine line between supporting a child’s ambitions and emotionally abusing them with pressure to succeed. It is important the child enjoys what he is doing, and except failure, knowing he has done his best. Equally important...
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...When Lorraine Hansberry wrote her famous play A Raisin In The Sun back in 1959 which is a period of time after the second world war, she addressed many topics and problems that the Americans and especially African American people were facing in their lives. One of the major concept that she brought to her play is the concept of home and what it meant and symbolized to African Americans back in those times. The play gave the readers an idea of how the concept of home was essential to African Americans. When the movie came out, it complement the idea by providing visual images to the audience which helped them better understand. To them, home wasn’t just a place that they can live in, it represented equality that they achieved by overcome racial...
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...Raisin in the Sun essay - Beneatha Beneatha is a character in Raisin in the Sun that faces a lot of prejudice during the book, including sexism, how she overcomes it is sticking to her dreams and staying independent. She is put down by her family and other strangers because she is a African American woman in a white-male dominated area. She has big dreams of becoming a doctor and she is determined to succeed. Beneatha is independent because she is not influenced by the possible marriage of George, a rich husband who could take care of her, she wants the person she loves, Asagai who doesn’t satisfy Mama’s and Walter’s expectations. When the Younger family is moving out, Beneatha says, “Mama, Asagai asked me to marry him today and to go to Africa-” (Beneatha to Mama page 149). Mama, so concentrated on the heat of the moment on rejecting Linder (Linder was trying to get them to move out because they were black) brushed Beneatha off by retorting, “You ain’t old enough to marry nobody's -Darling, that ain’t no bale of cotton, please handle it so we can sit on it again! I had that chair twenty-five years...” (Mama - Beneatha page 149). Beneatha is a high school graduate that has been striving to achieve her dreams on her own, her family has given her almost no support, and Walter spent the money that was supposed to send her to school. Mama didn’t even pay full attention to the huge news, especially in a mother's’ life, when her daughter is asked to marry someone. Beneatha continues...
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...Ruth, Lena, and Beneatha represent a very oppressed minority, African American women. Raisin in the Sun has a lot of social and economic conflicts within the play and the characters are representing a race that is being harshly treated in the midst of the Civil Rights and Woman’s Rights struggle. Woman’s rights is something that women are battling today. I was once told, by my employer’s bookkeeper, I was making woman’s wages, which I thought I was making pretty good money. I never thought that a man doing my same job, would be getting paid more than me. Women continue to battle an inequality between men and woman’s earnings, in the same positions, in today’s society. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like living in the 1950s and being discriminated against by Caucasians for the color of your skin and African American men because of your gender. During the 50s, both women and African Americans were having a hard time being heard. They had to demand their rights, but African American Women fell right in the middle of a venn diagram of the Civil Rights movements.They had the toughest time being dually discriminated against. They had the white community looking down on them for the color of their skin and husbands oppressing their wives and not treating them like equal partners. When Ruth tells her son,Travis, they do not...
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...A Raisin in the Sun Entry 1: Dear Diary, I am just now leaving The United States of America and on the plane right now as I’m writing this. Mama, Walter, Ruth, and Travis all dropped me off at the airport to say goodbye. It was really hard because I know I will not see them for a while, but they know what’s best for me. I know Mama wanted me to be with George, but he truly just wasn’t for me. He wanted me to be someone who I was not. He tried to push me away from who I am. I am Beneatha and proud of myself and family and since he couldn’t respect that I had to let him go. I hope Mama will understand why I did such a thing. She will never know how much I love her. As I am looking out of this window at the little specks of houses diapering I am thinking about what my future holds. I wonder if I have made the right decision, but I can only hope so. Joseph has changed my view of life. He has changed me for the better. I have always wanted to help others after I had watched the little boy in my neighborhood cut his head open. I know I am not the greatest follower of god, but I think this might be his plan for me. To look after the sick and diseased. I am delighted I have met Asagai. It’s almost like he is my other half because when I am with him I feel so alive and free. He makes me feel wanted and loved. He may not be the rich like George, but I love him just as much, if not more. Looking out into the clouds I see a happy future. Saving lives, curing patients, and caring for...
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...A Raisin in the Sun Persuasive Essay Prompt I believe the most important lesson about life that I learned by reading and studying Lorraine Hansberry’s play was that life has its peaks and valleys. The opening of the story starts with a family name the Younger’s in their apartment in the South Side of Chicago during the 1950s. It goes on to show us that it isn’t the best apartment in Chicago. It tells us that there is only one bathroom on their floor and that it isn’t very big and they refer to it as a “rat trap”. Next it tells us that Lena Younger is expecting a $10,000 life insurance check from the estate of her late husband, Walter Lee. With the check she is planning to retire from her job as a maid for a white family. Lena’s son, Walter Lee Junior, wants to use the money to buy a liquor store. His wife, Ruth, also a domestic in a white household, hopes to move to a larger apartment. Beneatha, Lena's daughter, dreams of going to medical school to be a doctor. When the check finally arrives anxiety breaks out in the family. Walter Lee feels he should get the money because he is the head of the family. While Ruth and Beneatha agree with each other that it is Lena's money, and she should decide how she wants to spend it. Lena realizes that the family's survival depends on their escape from the apartment. Because of this she makes a down payment on house in Clybourne Park. The only problem is that Clybourne Park is an all-white residential neighborhood. The plans for...
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...Michael Humphrey 2/16/16 Essay 1 Evolution of identity Throughout this section we have talked about culture and identity and how it ties into all of the short readings we have been assigned to read. In this paper I will discuss how ethnicity plays a vital role in culture and identity, and how it shapes the characters throughout each story or poem. All three of my examples will be coming from “A Raisin in the Sun”, by Lorraine Hansberry, “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, and “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane”, by Etheridge Knight. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about an African-American family who lives in poverty on the south side of Chicago, in 1959. Back in the day we know that African Americans didn’t have it easy, but how exactly did the fact of being black shape the way they lived and the way they processed things mentally? Walter worked as a chauffeur most of his life, but had dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. He had a vision of opening up a liquor store since he figured no one would ever stop drinking liquor. The problem he had was that he was a thirty-five year old man that had a son that was sleeping in the living room, and all he had to give him was stories about how rich white people lived. Instantly we see traces of how Walters’ current life situation falter his mindset into thinking he needed to be more successful so that his family could look up to him like a role model. At one point in the play Walter and Benny have...
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...ENC1102 Spring 2014 — Class Schedule |Tuesday, January 14th | |Introduction to the course, syllabus, schedule, materials, and peers. | | | | | |Thursday, January 16th | |In class we’ll read the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz” by Roethke (274), practice textual analysis, and work on an | | | |outline. | | | |Homework: Pg. 276, questions 14-16, and “making an argument” 4; | | | |Read the poem, “Those Winter Sundays” by Hayden (13) and answer | | | |questions 1-6. | | | | | |Tuesday, January 21st | |In class we’ll re-read the poem, “Those Winter Sundays” by Hayden, look at an earlier...
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