Transcript A Raisin the Sun Lorraine Hansberry

A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry
English 11
Lorraine Hansberry
• Born in Chicago, Illinois May 19, 1930
• Attended the University of Wisconsin in 1948
• Two years later she dropped out of college to pursue her
dream as a writer in New York City
• Attended classes at the New School for Social Research
• Obtained an editorial job for Freedom magazine
• Freedom magazine was run by Paul Robeson, a famed
African-American actor
• Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish student.
They moved to Greenwich Village.
Lorraine Hansberry cont.
• While working, she wrote a serious play about African Americans
• Its first title was The Crystal Stair. It later became A Raisin in the
Sun
• The play opened March 11, 1959 on Broadway
• She won the New York Drama Critics Award, she was the
youngest playwright honored
• While working on her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s
Window, she was diagnosed with cancer.
• She died on January 12, 1965
• Hansberry secretly divorced her husband, a year before her
death
• He continued to edit and adapt her work for Broadway.
• Plays: To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1969), Raisin (1974)
Lorraine Hansberry’s Family
• Hansberry’s father was a successful real-estate
businessman in Chicago
• Two of her uncles were professors at Howard
University in Washington, D.C.
• Her father challenged segregated housing practices
of Chicago, and moved his family into a previously allwhite neighborhood
Hansberry’s Influences: Langston Hughes
• Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
• While working on the play, before she named it A Raisin in
the Sun she took a line from Hughes’ poem, Mother to Son
and named it The Crystal Stair.
• When she finished the play, she changed the title to a line
from another Hughes’ poem called Harlem and included
the entire poem as the epigraph in the play.
• Epigraph: motto or quotation that appears at the beginning
of a work and relates to the theme.
“What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/Like a
raisin in the sun?”
A Raisin in the Sun
Character List
• Lena Younger (“Mama”) - Walter and Beneatha’s mother
and the matriarch. She is religious and moral. She wants
to use her husband’s insurance money to buy a house and
fulfill her dream of moving the family up in the world.
• Beneatha Younger – Mama’s daughter, Walter’s sister.
She is twenty years old and well-educated. She dreams of
being a doctor. Her views differ from Mama’s conservative
ideals. She is trying to find herself as a young black
woman.
• Walter Lee Younger - The protagonist. He is ~35 years
old. He invests father’s insurance money into a liquor
business. He is a dreamer and schemer who wants to
gain wealth with a quick solution.
A Raisin in the Sun
Character List Cont…
• Ruth Younger - Walter’s wife and Travis’s mother. She takes
care of the Younger’s apartment and works as a maid. She’s
only 30 but seems much older. She wants to rekindle her
marriage to Walter. They are constantly fighting due to poverty
and domestic troubles.
• Travis Younger - ~ 10-11 years old. Walter and Ruth’s
sheltered young son. He has no bedroom and sleeps in the living
room.
• Joseph Asagai - A Nigerian student in love with Beneatha. He’s
proud of his African culture. When he proposes to Beneatha, he
hopes she’ll return to Nigeria with him.
• George Murchison - A wealthy, African-American man who
courts Beneatha. The Youngers approve of George, but
Beneatha dislikes his willingness to submit to white culture.
A Raisin in the Sun
Character List Cont…
• Mr. Karl Lindner - The only white character. He is from
the Clybourne Park Improvement Association and asks the
Youngers to reconsider moving into their all-white
neighborhood.
• Bobo - One of Walter’s partners in the liquor store plan.
• Willy Harris - A friend of Walter and coordinator of the
liquor store plan.
• *Mrs. Johnson - The Youngers’ neighbor. Mrs. Johnson
takes advantage of the Youngers’ hospitality and warns
them about moving into a predominately
white neighborhood. *She appears in the original script but
her scene has been omitted in our version.
Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/raisin/characters.html
A Raisin in the Sun
Themes
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**Dreams can save or destroy a person
Discrimination
Materialism and money in themselves are worthless
Family-The family is the most important relationship in
most people’s lives
• Pride
• It is better to fight with dignity than surrender in shame
• *Identity is formed by many factors and influences
A Raisin in the Sun
Plot
Act 1, Scenes 1-2
• The Youngers live in economic hardship, but each dreams of a better
life in his/her own way.
• Mama receives a $10,000 insurance check from the death of her
husband. The family is trying to decide what to do with it. Beneatha
and Ruth want Mama to do with it what she wants, but Walter wants
Mama to help him invest it in a liquor store. Mama refuses to support
the liquor store due to her religious values.
• Asagai is pursuing Beneatha. She likes him better than George
Murchinson b/c he supports her, but she does not want to get married
until she has achieved her dream of becoming a doctor.
• Ruth discovers she is pregnant and considers having an abortion since
she cannot bear to raise another child in poverty.
• Walter cannot believe his wife would consider an abortion and is
shocked at the thought (Point: they have both changed and no longer
understand one another).
• Mama is upset with Walter when he will not convince Ruth to keep the
baby (she wants him to be the man his father was- the one she raised
him to be).
• Walter forgets that Ruth loves him. He drinks as an escape.
A Raisin in the Sun
Plot
Act II, Scenes 1-3
• Beneatha puts on the Nigerian robes from Asagai in an attempt to "go
back to her roots"
• Walter joins her in this imaginary game pretending he is an African
warrior (he is able to find inner strength and his place as the man and
dominant figure in the family).
• George Murchinson arrives to pick up Beneatha and he and Walter
begin to argue: Walter believes George may be rich and educated, but
that his knowledge and fashionable clothes are worthless to society. He
is resentful b/c George has everything without having to work for it (pg.
84) George simply disregards Walter, calling him bitter.
• After arguing with his wife as well, Walter softens (he can only show
love & affection to others if he feels supported).
• Mama tells the family she has bought them a house in Clybourne Park,
a white suburb: the others are excited but concerned, while Walter is
bitter once again b/c his liquor store $ is gone
• Beneatha wants nothing to do with George since he does not make her
feel valued.
A Raisin in the Sun
Plot
Act II, Scenes 1-3 (Cont.)
• Mrs. Johnson is jealous of the Younger's opportunity to move; she
warns them that the papers have been reporting violent acts against
'colored folks who move into the wrong neighborhoods.'
• Mama gives in to Walter and gives him control of the remaining
insurance $: he is to put $3000 in savings for Beneatha's education and
then may do what he wants with the last $3500. He begins to dream
again of a successful future as a businessman.
• The family is visited by the Clybourne Park "Welcoming Committee,"
Karl Lindner, the day they are scheduled to move.
• He offers to refund their money plus more if they do not move into the
neighborhood.
• He says racial prejudice has nothing to do with it, but that people are
more comfortable with their own people. Though he tries to come
across as caring and helpful, his true motives are obvious.
• Bobo brings news that Willy Harris has taken off with his and Walter's
liquor store $. Walter gave him all $6500.
• Mama is devastated and says her husband worked so hard for that $
and now it is gone. She beats Walter b/c she is so distraught.
A Raisin in the Sun
Plot
Act III
• Asagai tells Beneatha that it is unacceptable to give up on her dreams
just because her brother lost the $. He says it is up to her to carry on
her dreams.
• Since she has become cynical and bitter, he tells her she must remain
hopeful if she is ever going to make a difference.
• He asks her to go back to Nigeria with him, and asks her to think it over
• Mama asks the family to unpack their things b/c there is no sense
moving anymore. Ruth is the only one who seems to still want to get
out of the apartment and start a new life.
• Walter calls "The Man," Karl Lindner, with a plan to double their $ by
taking him up on his previous offer.
• The others cannot believe he would stoop so low as to reverse the
fighting of five generations of African Americans.
• Walter responds by saying Willy Harris taught him that those who
debate right and wrong will always be "tooken" and that he has learned
he can get ahead by taking advantage of situations and others if that is
what needs to be done. (Note- Walter speaks in slave dialect)
A Raisin in the Sun
Plot
Act III (Cont.)
• Beneatha disowns her brother but Mama criticizes her for not
understanding what has led Walter to this point- Family should support
each other and show love to protect each other from the outside world
no matter what "There is always something left to love" (pg. 147)
(implies that Beneatha's actions are worse than Walter's).
• When Lindner arrives, Walter changes his mind and demonstrates pride
on behalf of his family and people. He tells Lindner they've decided to
move into their house that his father earned and that they'd be good
neighbors and not make trouble.
• Lindner is taken aback and asks Mama to talk sense into Walter. Mama
is now proud to stand by her son.
• The family packs its things into the moving van as Mama and Beneatha
argue (lovingly) over marriage again.
• Mama and Ruth agree Walter has finally come into his manhood.
• Mama makes sure to bring her plant (symbolic- represents the dream
she's been nurturing for years).