The hope to escape poverty is only given concrete assistance by the death of the father, but when most of this money is stolen the family comes together in a show of unity. It is as though the play argues finally that just by having the dream one will become a success as hope has triumphed over adversity. As the stage directions for Act One, Scene One reveal, the Younger family live in cramped conditions and as they talk it becomes all the more evident that their lives are dominated by the combined traps of poverty and racism. As Walter points, it has always been about money and this telling remark represents how this play tries to demonstrate that poverty both justifies and creates inequalities.
The plaintiff in the first action in 1934 was Olive Ida Burke, who brought the suit on behalf of a property owners’ association to enforce racial restrictions. Her husband, James Burke, later sold a house to Carl Hansberry (Lorraine’s father), when he changed his mind about the validity of the covenant. Mr. Burke’s decision may have been motivated by the changing demographics of the neighborhood, but it was also influenced by the Depression. The demand for houses was so low among white buyers that Mr. Hansberry may have been the only prospective purchaser available. The character Mrs. Johnson and a few scenes were cut from the Broadway performance and in reproductions because of time constraints. Mrs. Johnson is the Younger family’s nosy and loud neighbor, at the beginning of the play.
She says in “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, “Imagine in my mind is a man whom kings might have imitated and properly created their own flattering descriptions of.” She is saying that her father was a man that even a king would look up to. Lorraine Hansberry’s father died when they were young too, and he was also a hardworking man. There are a lot of connections between Lorraine Hansberry’s life and her writing. The Younger’s hardworking father died too, and he also tried to do what was best for his family.
She becomes willing to sacrifice anything for her children’s future. However, one can argue that the catalyst for her family’s success is money, wealth. A Raisin in the Sun is a play telling the story of an African-American tragedy. The Younger family lives in the ghetto and is at a crossroads after the father’s death. Mother Lena Younger and her grown up children Walter Lee and Beneatha share a cramped apartment in a poor district of Chicago, in which she and Walter Lee’s wife Ruth and son Travis barely write my essayz fit together inside. Lena’s husband, the family’s father died and his life insurance brings the family $ 10,000.
Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor and prove that your race doesn’t matter and that should always strive for your dreams. She grew up in a society where women stay at home and tedious work instead of actual jobs. And money was also a big part in holding her back since before the check she was most likely not be able to go to med school. She is different to where she is not like other girls her age because it’s usual to be a sit inside wife and tend to the house.
Their pursuit will lead them to many sacrifices and risks that affect themselves and their family. Individuals with strong determination to pursue their dreams such as Walter and Beneatha depicts how dreams can interfere with reality, which causes them to detach from their lives and sacrifice everything. In A Raisin in the Sun, the power of money regarding social stature and dignity is also presented. This is demonstrated when Beneatha talks to Ruth about one of her suitors, George Murchison. George is an anomaly regarding black men in this period, for he is rich and lives in the luxury which is normally attained by white people. Beneatha tells Ruth that George is offensively snobbish and rude due to his higher class.
Several other motifs are also successfully intertwined into this drama. Hansberry’s avant-garde concerns, her prophetic political vision, and her ability to perceive the future importance of events that few people in 1959 were even aware of are used as lesser motifs or minor themes throughout the play. Beneatha, a young feminist college student, is the least tolerant of society’s unequal treatment and expectations of women. Beneatha constantly challenges Walter’s chauvinism, and has no time for shallow men like George Murchison, who do not respect her ideas.
In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In the Sun, an African-American family living in a tiny, run-down apartment on the south side of Chicago, encounters barriers due to poverty and structural racism as they try to turn their dreams into reality. I think that he would think about life for blacks, though, and probably wonder how many people have to live with cockroaches around in families where mom is the head of the household because dad left or he died. He would remember the television news coverage of how sheriff Jim Clark behaved in Selma on March 7, 1965. That was the day when sheriff Clark, his vicious dogs, and other officers on horseback just went into a crowd of black demonstrators . They beat women, boys, girls, older men, with their nightsticks and the TV showed the whole ugly situation. This was the Selma to Montgomery march let by Rev. Martin Luther King.