Examples Of Sacrifice In A Raisin In The Sun

Lorraine Hansberry was born in 1930 and grew up on the southside of Chicago. Her play, Raisin in the Sun, is based on the beginning of her life growing up in a middle-class African American family. Hansberry’s family purchased a house in a white neighborhood and the white neighbors attacked them. In result to this, the white neighbors went to court and Hansberry’s family was kicked out of the neighborhood. This play is also a reaction to Langston Hughes’s poem, Harlem. In his poem, he asked the question “What happens to a dream deferred?” Raisin in the Sun is an answer to his question. In her play, Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry uses Walter, Mama, and Beneatha to show the negative consequences that occur when you put off your dream.

Hansberry explores this idea at length as Walter talks how an increase in cash flow would benefit him. Obsessed with his dream, Walter tells his Mama “[money] if life!” When this life dream comes crashing down, Walter finds himself tempted to accept a white man’s bride instead of standing up for his pride and his family. Perhaps his ideals changed; or perhaps he realized his dream was only a fantasy; or perhaps he truly thought that this was the best decision for his family. However, when decisions making time comes, Mama pulls Travis aside, telling him to ask Walter what the five generations before him had come to do. Indeed, Walter teaches his son. He talks about his father and how his fathers pride caused him to kill a man rather than to be insulted, the aspirations of his siter, how their father earned their house “brick by brick”. At this point, the overall tone of the play changes. No longer does the play continue in a despairing mindset, but it changes as Walter steps up to become “the man of the

Lorraine Hansberry created the sense of feeling trapped in the character Mama. Mama feels trapped because she and her husband were never able to live out their dream. “I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks wasn’t planning on living here no more than a year” (Hansberry, 19). They planned to live in the little apartment just for a year to save up. “We were going to set away little by little, don’t you know, and buy a little place out in Morgan Park” (Hansberry, 19). Mama and Big Walter wanted to buy a house in a nice neighborhood after living the apartment for a while. The fact that they couldn’t move out and had to stay at the little apartment made mama feels trapped.

In the text “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, the author uses the writing strategy of conflict to develop the central idea of how oneself can become selfish when trying to achieve the American dream. The text shows that the central idea is selfishness because circumstances are presented where various characters fail to take into consideration others while seeking their dreams. For example, Walters says, “ Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ’bout messing round with sick people, then go be a nurse like other women-or just get married and be quiet…. ’’. This example of greed shows that the ambition to obtain a dream brings out the selfishness is true in the instance of Walter. It shows this because Walter diminishes his sisters Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor by making a misogynist comment in which insinuates on her settling on being a nurse due to a doctor clearly being an often male dominant profession. Furthermore, Walter is deluded by greed on opening a liquor store which causes him to have no regard for the feelings or desires of others. Clearly, the central idea of the text is that in trying to achieve a dream it can bring out a person selfish tendency because people tend to disparage others dreams in order to attain theirs.

After a visit from Karl Lindner, the family learned that the white neighbors were willing to do whatever it may take to keep the Younger 's from moving in. However, little did the family know, it would be more than simply offering to buy the house back. During the 1950s and sixties, there was no limit to what white people would do to stop integration. Lorraine Hansberry 's own situation demonstrated this. Mobs surrounded the home and pelted the children with spit and curses (Hansberry 1215). In addition, her mother spent the night patrolling their home with a German luger to protect the family from the terror they faced from their white neighbors (Hansberry 1215). The Younger’s were moving to a new home, which was something to be celebrated. Yet, by doing this they were risking their lives. Thus, the happy ending that they believed they had was about to come to an abrupt ending.

The world stereotypes rich people as rude, stuck up and selfish. Ever wonder why? Studies from Yale, The New York Times, TED and more have concluded, money changes everything. Whether it’s attitude, morals or values, money can affect and change all aspects of someone’s life. The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a theme showing this claim clearly. The author, Lorraine Hansberry, puts in different characters to help display these themes and the correlation between money and how it affects people.

Of the three major struggles the Younger family faced, the most prominent in Act one is that of financial disability. This is best shown through the working lives of the family. Out of a family of five, three people work: Walter Lee as a chauffeur to a wealthy white family, Ruth as a housemaid, and Mama as a nanny to other peoples children. This is clearly necessary to afford basic needs as shown in their apartment, with “weariness [having], in fact won” (Hansberry pg.23). It is clear in Hansberry’s characterization that the members of the Younger family are dissatisfied with their station in life, albeit to varying degrees; Walter Lee in particular is very vocal regarding their poverty, as he states at one point: “I got boy who sleeps in the living room- and all I got to tell him is stories about how rich white people

In A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, the audience was able to obtain a sense of the struggle for the American dream. We are introduced to the Youngerś a black family living in the Southside of Chicago around the 1950’s. Each member of this family has their own meaning to what is the American dream. A Raisin in the Sun teaches us that even though life might be full of conflicts, it is important to not give up on our dreams.

Family is important to everyone in some way because family sticks together no matter what. The play A Raisin in the Sun is about a black family named the Youngers and the hardships they face together as a family. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Ruth Younger is motivated by her family. This is shown by Ruth wanting to make her family happy, her working even though she is tired, and later when Ruth finds out there is going to be another mouth to feed.

Therefore, the offer of accepting the money or getting out. They Youngers are hesitant at first, when Ruth asks where it is and Mama replies “Clybourne Park” both Ruth and Walter reply with unsatisfying remarks with the knowledge that there are no colored families in that area. Mama says, “Them houses they up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as the houses. I did the best i could.” Knowing the opportunity and and challenges they’d await Mama still went through with buying the house. She may see potential in Walter that he doesn't see in himself and wants to save the family from more hardship than they’ve already had to face. When Ruth asks, “Is there, a whole lot of sunlight?” Mama replies “Yes, child, a whole lot of sunlight.” Symbolically the sunlight represents the promising future they have in the new house and hopeful that they may overcome the racial barrier between whites and blacks within the

Have you ever felt that your view of things change when you get older? Well, that’s how Jacqueline Woodson felt. As we grow and change, so do our perspectives on a variety of things that we experience in life. In the beginning, Woodson introduces that since she got older, her perspective of her once beloved home has changed as a central idea of the story. By observing how her character changes over the course of the plot, it seems evident that Woodson is trying to convey to the reader that a person’s view of things change as one gets older.

What would you do if you were told your dream would never come true? Dreams are what people hold onto to motivate us to achieve our goals. The Youngers are a poor African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago. With an opportunity to escape from poverty comes in the form of a $10,000 life insurance check that the matriarch of the family receives upon her husband 's death. Each of the adult members of the family has an idea as to what he or she would like to do with this money. As the play progresses, the Youngers clash over their competing dreams. In “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, the role of the hero stays the same in Act I and Act II, but changes in Act III depending on the overall dramatic situation, yet theme of

Money is one of the things in the world that a person can become obsessed with. In the story “A Raisin in the sun” the author Lorraine Hansberry shows how a family is changed by the lust of money. A widow, Lena, her son Walter Younger, his wife Ruth and daughter Beneatha all lived under the same roof. Lena just lost her husband and is receiving a check for his death. With the money, Lena wants to buy a new house for the whole family to live in but everyone else in the family sees a different type of opportunity. Being the man of the household, Walter dreams of owning a liquor store and plans on using Lena’s money to do so. Walter is always after money and believes that the only way to succeed in life is with money. For example, when Walter is talking about the check, he 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, turning deals worth millions of dollars, sometimes I see guys don’t look much older than me” (992).This shows how Walter wanted something more out of life and not just be a poor black man.

In Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun, the characters of Mama, Walter ,and Beneatha are faced with hardships associated with their dreams being destroyed by discriminatory housing,racial inequality and lack of support from her family towards her education. In the play all the characters have some kind of dream. Mama wants to get a house for the family, Walter wants to have money to provide for his family and plans to do that with a liquor store, and Beneatha wants to become a doctor. Beneatha is going to school and at the same time she’s trying to discover herself,but her family is not supportive of this. Mama did unfortunately lose her husband, and the family is receiving a life insurance check for $10,000.

In the play Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry takes place on the southside of Chicago where Walter and his family are racially profiled and show us how the survive throughout their struggles. The central struggles for the younger family in their search for the American dream is mostly poverty and being racially profiled against for their actions.