"A Raisin in the Sun"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Lorraine Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun" about Walter the resentful patriarch of the family who acts out certain attitudes affecting the black community in his time. It looks at how Hansberry clearly writes from her own experience, the family she writes about exists in a specific time period--the 1950s--and a specific milieu--the south side of Chicago. It shows how The Younger family is on the verge of escaping from the ghetto, with each family member having his or her own dream and how this dream begins with the desire to achieve the American dream. It discusses how by the end of the play the seamy reality of that dream has been exposed and the family has shifted to a celebration of its own value system rather than aspiring to emulate white society.

From the Paper:

"The kind of experience the Youngers have leads them to a spiritual and familial regeneration, and they transcend their ghetto not by moving to the suburbs but by understanding themselves and their place in black society. The prevailing racism has left the Youngers with a feeling of inferiority they try to overcome. The anger that such treatment creates is subdued in this family. The one vital element in the Younger family that sets them apart from much of the black experience today is the fact that they are, in the end, a family. The breakdown of the family in the ghetto is much discussed today. The Youngers have stayed together, something difficult even in the 1950s and something which shows them as atypical. Hansberry is not painting a false picture, and she is promoting the idea that family can help solve some of the problems faced in a racist society."

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