Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun"

 

Themes:                                                                      Symbols:

Generational conflict                         Lena's plant

Manhood and dignity                                                Money

Assimilation                                                               George Murchison's white shoes

Black servitude                                                          Asagai's Nigerian robes

Black struggle to achieve American Dream

Racism & Discrimination

Discussion Questions:

Family

One of the major themes presented in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" portrays each character's search for their vision of the American Dream. What are the "dreams deferred" by Walter, Ruth, Mama, and/or Beneatha?

 Image of Women

Hansberry skillfully illustrates through the female protagonists how women's ideas about their identity have changed over time. Explain how each of these women represents the changes in women's roles and ideas over the three generations that they span.

Image of Manhood

At the end of the play, speaking to Ruth about Walter Lee, Mama says, "He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he?" how does Mama appear to be defining manhood? What other possible definitions of manhood come up directly or indirectly in the play? Would you say that the issue of gender is at least as important as race is? Why or why not?

Freedom/Liberation

With its intended purpose to provide every American a decent home within a generation, the Housing Act of 1949 had only been in place for ten years when the play hit the stage. At the time, the majority of African Americans were still living in poverty. Discuss the current living conditions of the Younger family and the ways in which integration are presented throughout the play. Was integration the end all answer to America's race problem? Why or why not?

Assimilationism/Afrocentricism

Afrocentricism is a motif throughout the play. As defined by scholar, Molefi K. Asante, it is "placing African ideals at the center of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior." Analyze Asagai's conversations with Beneatha and the rest of her family. What does Hansberry suggest about the relations of Africans and African Americans in the late 1950s? What does she also suggest about class tensions within the African American community?

What are the "dreams deferred" by Walter, Ruth, Mama, and/or Beneatha?

• Beneatha wants to go to medical school, her brother Walter wants to invest in a liquor store, and all Mama wants is a better life for her children. Mama's dream is focused not on herself but on her family and their prospects for a brighter future.

Explain how each of these women represents the changes in women's roles and ideas over the three generations that they span.

• The Youngers struggle socially and economically throughout the play but unite in the end to realize their dream of buying a house. Mama strongly believes in the importance of family, and she tries to teach this value to her family as she struggles to keep them together and functioning. Walter and Beneatha learn this lesson about family at the end of the play, when Walter must deal with the loss of the stolen insurance money and Beneatha denies Walter as a brother. Even facing such trauma, they come together to reject Mr. Lindner's racist overtures. They are still strong individuals, but they are now individuals who function as part of a family. When they begin to put the family and the family's wishes before their own, they merge their individual dreams with the family's overarching dream.

At the end of the play, speaking to Ruth about Walter Lee, Mama says, "He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he?" how does Mama appear to be defining manhood? What other possible definitions of manhood come up directly or indirectly in the play? Would you say that the issue of gender is at least as important as race is? Why or why not?

• "Well, you tell that to my boy tonight when you put him to sleep on the living-room couch...Yeah—and tell it to my wife, Mama, tomorrow when she has to go out of here to look after somebody else's kids. And tell it to me, Mama, every time we need a new pair of curtains and I have to watch you go out and work in somebody's kitchen. Yeah, you tell me then!"(Act 1 Scene 2)

• This scene shows the importance of money to Walter Lee. Here he is trying to guilt his mother into giving him the money by pointing out things that the family has to settle with. For example, he tells Lena that she will have to tell that to his son he is pointing out that Travis sleeps on the couch and does not have an actual bed of his own. He talks about how his wife Ruth has to watch someone else's kids for money instead middle of paper the deeds done for your family. Instead of choosing to give up the home his mother purchased for the family Walter stands up and chooses not only a better home for his family but also a better life. He chooses to keep a place his mother purchased that went against his dreams to provide his son with a real home and in doing so he finally and truly understood what it was to have his manhood restored.

What does Hansberry suggest about the relations of Africans and African Americans in the late 1950s? What does she also suggest about class tensions within the African American community?

• A Raisin in the Sun was a revolutionary work for its time. Hansberry creates in the Younger family one of the first honest depictions of a black family on an American stage, in an age when predominantly black audiences simply did not exist. Before this play, African-American roles, usually small and comedic, largely employed ethnic stereotypes. Hansberry, however, shows an entire black family in a realistic light, one that is unflattering and far from comedic. She uses black vernacular throughout the play and broaches important issues and conflicts, such as poverty, discrimination, and the construction of African-American racial identity.
• A Raisin in the Sun explores not only the tension between white and black society but also the strain within the black community over how to react to an oppressive white community. Hansberry's drama asks difficult questions about assimilation and identity. Through the character of Joseph Asagai, Hansberry reveals a trend toward celebrating African heritage. As he calls for a native revolt in his homeland, she seems to predict the anticolonial struggles in African countries of the upcoming decades, as well as the inevitability and necessity of integration.
• In Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem," he discusses the idea of unfulfilled dreams and their plausible outcomes using symbolism and imagery. He initially describes a "deferred" dream as a sun-dried raisin, depicting the dream originally as a fresh grape that now has dried up and "turned black" . This idea provides Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun with its basic foundation, for it is a play about a house full of unfulfilled dreams.
• All of this idealism about race and gender relations boils down to a larger, timeless point—that dreams are crucial. In fact, Hansberry's play focuses primarily on the dreams driving and motivating its main characters. These dreams function in positive ways, by lifting their minds from their hard work and tough lifestyle, and in negative ways, by creating in them even more dissatisfaction with their present situations. For the most part, however, the negative dreams come from placing emphasis on materialistic goals rather than on familial pride and happiness. Hansberry seems to argue that as long as people attempt to do their best for their families, they can lift each other up. A Raisin in the Sun remains important as a cultural document of a crucial period in American history as well as for the continued debate over racial and gender issues that it has helped spark.

Discuss the current living conditions of the Younger family and the ways in which integration are presented throughout the play. Was integration the end all answer to America's race problem? Why or why not?

• Yes they answer the America's race problem.
• For Walter, who feels enslaved in his job and life, money is the truest freedom.
• Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, characters connect money to discussions of race. Mama says, "Once upon a time freedom used to be life—now it's money. I guess the world really do change." Walter grew up being "free" in the way that Mama means, but he faced other problems, such as the lack of financial and social freedom that he talks about here. Walter believes that freedom is not enough and that, while civil rights are a large step for blacks, in the real world—for the Youngers, the South Side of Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s—blacks are still treated differently and more harshly than whites. Mr. Lindner, who later comes to persuade the Youngers not to move into his all-white neighborhood, embodies one example of this racist treatment. Mrs. Johnson later speaks of reading about the bombing of a black family's house in the "colored paper" and complains that the racist white people who were responsible for the bombing make her feel like times have not changed, as if they still live in turbulent Mississippi, a hotbed of racism during the mid-twentieth century.
• In some ways, the play ends happily for the Younger family. Walter, who has considered accepting a bribe from a white homeowners' association in exchange for not moving to a new neighborhood, decides to forgo the payment. The family prepares to move to their new, white neighborhood.
• Thus at the end of the play the Younger family decide to move into the house that Mama bought with her husband's insurance payout and reject the offer from the community. They seem to have recognised a dignity and a pride within themselves that makes them realise they deserve the same opportunities as whites.