Surname1 Student Name Institution Professor Course Date A Raisin in the Sun Introduction A Raisin in the Sun is a play of a story of an African American family that lived in one of the apartments in Chicago. Though the states of poverty that the family experiences, it inspires to move beyond this situation and one day get to the lifestyle, it has always admired.
A Raisin the Sun: Reading Log Name Adebanji Bamidele Directions: As we read through A Raisin in the Sun, fill out the following table as completely as possible.The description of setting must include time and place, and for the most part remains the same throughout the entire play. It is okay to just list your answers, except for the one sentence summaries.
Course Hero's expert-written discussion question and answer pairs for Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun offer insight and analysis on themes, symbols, characters, and more.
A Raisin in the Sun is essentially about dreams, as the main characters struggle to deal with the oppressive circumstances that rule their lives. The title of the play references a conjecture that Langston Hughes famously posed in a poem he wrote about dreams that were forgotten or put off.
Travis Younger - 10 year old son who has to share everything in his life. Joseph Asagai - Originally from Nigeria, he dates Beneatha and encourages her to move back to Africa with him and practice medicine there. George Murchison - A rich man who dates Beneatha but believes women don't need to work.
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes....A Raisin in the SunPlace premieredEthel Barrymore TheatreOriginal languageEnglishGenreDomestic dramaSettingSouth Side, Chicago4 more rows
Arguably the first play to portray Black characters, themes, and conflicts in a natural and realistic manner, A Raisin in the Sun received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the Year. Hansberry was the youngest playwright, the fifth woman, and the only Black writer at that point to win the award.
Lena Younger, also known as “Mama,” is one of the strongest and motivating characters of the play by Lorraine Hansberry. Despite the fact that the play tells a life story of Walter Lee Younger, Mama appears to be a person that has a significant influence on the development of the plot...
Lena YoungerInterestingly, Hansberry makes Mama, Lena Younger, the strongest character in the play. She always seems to have the right answers while the other characters do not.Jun 21, 2016
In the play, the Younger family faces situations that are all realistic, consisting of frustrations with employment, desires for upward mobility, family squabbles, and the exhaustion that sets in from trying to raise children and keep food on the table.
March 11, 1959A Raisin in the Sun / First performanceA Raisin in the Sun opened at the Barrymore Theatre in New York on March 11, 1959, to great popular and critical success. It was the first play written by an African American to be produced on Broadway and the first to be directed by an African American in over half a century.
The epigraph to A Raisin in the Sun is Langston Hughes' poem "Montage of a Dream Deferred" which was written as a critique of Harlem life. The eleven lines are a hypothesis about the ramifications of white society's actions to withhold equal opportunity from black citizens [13].
Ruth works as a cleaning woman for a white family and also does much of the Younger family's housework. She seems defeated at the play's beginning, with a lack of control over her life. As the play progresses, Ruth shows that she hopes for better circumstances and longs to rekindle her relationship with Walter.
Walter is a chauffeur and aspiring business owner in his mid-30s. He follows current events in the civil rights movement and is unhappy in his job working for a rich white man. He's the main character, or protagonist, of the play and goes through the most significant change. He's lean and fidgety, and he has an emotional, outspoken, passionate personality. His relationship with his wife, Ruth, is alternately loving and antagonistic. Walter expresses a need to provide for his family, especially for his son Travis, and to become the man and authority of the house. Walter's ambition drives much of the plot. He pursues his goal both selfishly—imagining himself becoming a rich businessman in an office—and out of concern for his family.
Beneatha is Walter's younger sister. Like her brother she has a lean figure and an intensely emotional personality. She represents a new generation of African Americans, smart and unafraid to go after what they want. Her character arc, in many ways, foreshadows the coming civil rights movement.
Walter in A Raisin in the Sun is best described as an antihero, or an unconventional hero. Throughout the play, he makes many decisions that hurt the members of his family, but by the end of the play, he is able to regain their respect. You're probably wondering what makes Walter an antihero.
The title of Hansberry's play is taken from a well-known poem by Langston Hughes, a key literary figure of the cultural movement called the Harlem Renaissance. Read the poem "Harlem" and then discuss why Hansberry may have chosen A Raisin in the Sun as a title.
He dreams of opening a liquor store with one of his friends, because he feels it will allow him to make enough money to provide for the family and give him the power to be his own boss. When Walter's father dies and leaves behind a $10,000 life insurance check, he sees it as his chance to invest in the liquor store. The entire family is against the liquor store for different reasons. Walter's mother is very religious and finds the idea of a liquor store to be sinful. His wife and sister simply don't believe his friend can be trusted.
When Walter realizes that his son, Travis, is watching him as he prepares to take the money, he has a change of heart and decides to set the right example. He refuses the money after all, and eventually the family moves into the new house in the white neighborhood. Important Quotes from Walter.
Walter Lee Younger is one of the main characters and the antihero, or unconventional hero, of Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning play A Raisin in the Sun. Walter feels useless as a man because he doesn't make enough money to provide for his family.