a raisin in the sun discrimination essay

Racial Discrimination in “A Raisin in the Sun” Essay

Racial discrimination is the main theme of the book, strongly reflecting the situation that prevailed during the 1950s in the United States, a time when the story’s Younger family lived in Chicago’s South Side ghetto. Racial discrimination led to the city being carved into two distinct parts – the first housing whites only, and the other housing blacks. A majority of blacks did not accept the idea of assimilating into the dominant white culture on the grounds that by doing so they would fit into white perceptions about their behavior and actions and thereby would be demeaning themselves. Blacks were searching for separate self-identities based on a celebration of their culture and heritage. They wanted to be treated as equally (like whites) contributing members of society, in pursuit of the American Dream. All the minor characters in the book indulge in actions that reflect the racial discrimination prevailing at that time.

George Murchison, the rich black suitor of Beneatha Younger, believes that assimilating into white society is the only way to attain riches and the admiration of others. Instead of feeling pride in his African heritage, and like other black members of the community, resist racism, George in fact supports racism by willingly submitting to white culture. When Beneatha says he ought to be more considerate about the causes blacks were fighting for, he arrogantly replies: “Forget it baby! There ain’t no causes” (Hansberry, p. 136). He even goes to the extent of using his God given sharp intellect and debating ability to ridicule other blacks . Due to his perceived pro-racist stance, George becomes increasingly repelling to other blacks .

Joseph Asagai is the exact opposite of George Murchison. He is a forceful Nigerian character, an African intellectual (Hansberry, p. 42), who takes fierce pride in his African heritage (Hansberry, p. 72). Having fallen in love with Beneatha, he tries to awaken pride of her heritage in her by giving her Nigerian costumes to wear and fondly calling her ‘Alaiyo’ . He pleads with her to marry him and accompany him to his native Nigeria that he promises she would like so much, it would feel as though she had “only been away a day” (Hansberry, p. 130)}. While Asagai represents a powerful African model that other blacks can proudly emulate, he is guilty of supporting an important pillar of racism – suppression of women. When Beneatha, in response to his proposal of marriage, says she is not interested in a storybook romance, but wants to become an independent and liberated woman, Asagai heaps scorn on her wishes, saying: “Liberated women are not liberated at all!” (Hansberry, p. 50).

Willy Harris, Walter Younger’s black partner in his liquor store project cheats him and runs away with the investment money (Hansberry, 118). Instead of helping Walter try to improve his finances and position in life for himself and his family, Willy instead adds more problems to the Youngers’ already heavy financial burden. Willy’s action proves that he is a betrayer of his fellow black, and by association, a betrayer of the entire black community and the causes they were fighting for.

Mrs. Johnson, neighbor of the Younger family, represents the typical black person too scared to assimilate with whites in a predominantly white neighborhood. She tries to scare the Younger family into not moving into the all-white Clybourne community by recalling incidents where blacks were badly intimidated in similar situations (Hansberry, p. 104).

Karl Lindner portrays the typical “white Aryan”, arrogantly secure in the power of his race and its belief that blacks are not fit to live in the same neighborhood as them. He is chosen by the all-white Clybourne community to make the Youngers “try and understand their [whites’] problem, and the way they feel” (Hansberry, p. 105); the problem being the entry of a black family into the all-white community would create insecurity for the residents. The whites even authorize Lindner to pay the Youngers money in return for staying away from their sheltered community. Lindner comes very close to achieving his mission when Walter agrees to take the money and sign a binding contract (Hansberry, p. 141), only to be thwarted at the last moment when Walter has a change of heart.

African American Lorraine Hansberry wrote “A Raisin in the Sun” much before the black liberation movement resulted in the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that revolutionized the life of blacks in the country, giving them freedom and recognition as equal contributors to American society as their white counterparts. Unfortunately, she did not get much time to savor the great victory because the landmark Act was passed just one year before her untimely death at the age of thirty-four.

Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” USA: Vintage. 1994.

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Bibliography

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A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine hansberry, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

In 1959 much of the United States, including Chicago, remained de facto segregated, meaning that racial segregation persisted in education, employment, and housing even though the Supreme Court had overturned segregation that was established by law as unconstitutional. Set in de facto segregated Chicago, Hansberry’s play draws on stories from the author’s own life, such as her family’s experience with housing discrimination in 1930s Chicago. After moving to a house in an all-white neighborhood, Hansberry’s family endured legal battles and physical threats not unlike the “bombs” that Walter , Ruth , and Mrs. Johnson reference in the play. Despite the suggestion by Karl Lindner that “race prejudice simply doesn't enter into” Clybourne Park’s offer to buy back the Youngers’ home, he hints at the very real dangers that accompany the family’s decision to relocate to a white neighborhood.

Certain characters in the play, such as George Murchison , address persistent racial discrimination by directing their efforts toward assimilation, whereby one integrates into the mainstream of society. Beneatha , declaring that she “hate[s] assimilationist Negroes,” condemns George as “ashamed of his heritage” when he initially scoffs at her close-cut, “natural” hair . George retorts that the “heritage” in which Beneatha takes such pride is “nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts!” With this argument, Hansberry gives voice to the varied opinions of African-American thinkers, such as Booker T. Washington (who argued in favor of gradual assimilation of African Americans) and Marcus Garvey (who championed pride in African heritage and called for African Americans to return to Africa).

In the same vein as Garvey, Hansberry explores the idea of Africa as a home for African Americans, a view most clearly articulated by Joseph Asagai , a Nigerian student. Following the loss of Walter’s investment Asagai suggests that a disheartened Beneatha “come home with me . . . to Africa.” Asagai’s suggestion that Beneatha move to Nigeria with him to explore her African roots reflected the surge in African studies that gained momentum in the late 1950s. While Beneatha shows genuine interest in her African heritage, she does not answer Asagai’s proposal within the context of the play, hinting that she may not go so far as to think of Africa as her “home.”

Race, Discrimination, and Assimilation ThemeTracker

Race, Discrimination, and Assimilation Quotes in A Raisin in the Sun

That is just what is wrong with the colored women in this world . . . Don’t understand about building their men up and making ‘em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something.

Asagai: You wear it well . . . very well . . . mutilated hair and all. Beneatha: My hair – what’s wrong with my hair? Asagai: Were you born with it like that? Beneatha: No . . . of course not.

Mama: Oh – So now it’s life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life – now it’s money. I guess the world really do change . . . Walter: No – it was always money, Mama. We just didn’t know about it. Mama: No . . . something has changed. You something new, boy. In my time we was worried about not being lynched and getting to the North if we could and how to stay alive and still have a pinch of dignity too . . .

Oh, dear, dear, dear! Here we go! A lecture on the African past! On our Great West African Heritage! In one second we will hear all about the great Ashanti empires; the great Songhay civilizations; and the great sculpture of Bénin – and then some poetry in the Bantu – and the whole monologue will end with the word heritage ! Let’s face it, baby, your heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts!

I say I been wrong, son. That I been doing to you what the rest of the world been doing to you. Walter – what you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. . . . There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else – if it means – if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. . . . I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.

But you’ve got to admit that a man, right or wrong, has the right to want to have a neighborhood he lives in a certain kind of way. And at the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background. I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.

Independence and then what? What about all the crooks and thieves and just plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before – only now they will be black and do it in the name of the new Independence – WHAT ABOUT THEM?!

Don’t you see that they will be young men and women – not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen – to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don’t you see they have always been there . . . that they will always be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance?

Talking ‘bout life, Mama. . . . Mama, you know it’s all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the “tooken.” I’ve figured it out finally. Yeah. Some of us always getting “tooken.”

Son – I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers – but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. We ain’t never been that – dead inside.

Have you cried for that boy today? I don’t mean for yourself and for the family ‘cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learning – because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ‘cause the world done whipped him so!

And we have decided to move into our house because my father – my father – he earned it for us brick by brick. We don’t want to make no trouble for nobody or fight no causes, and we will try to be good neighbors. And that’s all we got to say about that. We don’t want your money.

The New York Times

The learning network | text to text | ‘a raisin in the sun’ and ‘discrimination in housing against nonwhites persists quietly’.

Text to Text | ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ and ‘Discrimination in Housing Against Nonwhites Persists Quietly’

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Updated: April 4

With the much-anticipated April 3 opening of a new Broadway revival starring Denzel Washington, “A Raisin in the Sun” is again in the spotlight — though for teachers the groundbreaking play has been a classroom staple for decades. First performed on Broadway in 1959 , “Raisin” last appeared there 10 years ago , then starring Phylicia Rashad, Sean Combs, Audra McDonald and Sanaa Lathan, a production that was later adapted for television .

The play remains a potent touchstone, still speaking to viewers about race, gender roles, family, hope and desperation, capitalism, the American dream and so much more.

This edition of our Text to Text series was written by Audrey Fisch, a professor of English and elementary and secondary education at New Jersey City University, and Susan Chenelle, who teaches English and journalism at University Academy Charter High School in Jersey City, N.J.

Together, they are writing a book series on using informational text to teach literature — a series that has much in common with what we do on The Learning Network in all our Language Arts lesson plans, but especially via our Text to Text series. The first volume of their series, “Using Informational Text to Teach ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,'” will be published in April; the second will focus on “Raisin.”

Below, the authors match a famous scene from the play with a 2013 Times article on the persistence of the problem of housing discrimination, a central theme in “Raisin” and an issue about which students are likely to have little background knowledge.

By Susan Chenelle and Audrey Fisch

Background:

An introduction to the play by the Westport Country Playhouse, which staged a production directed by Phylicia Rashad in 2012.

One of the underlying sources for “A Raisin in the Sun” is Lorraine Hansberry’s personal experience with housing discrimination. In the 1930s, her father, Carl Hansberry, bought a house in the South Park neighborhood of Chicago.

The house was “protected” by a racially restrictive covenant, which legally prevented ownership or occupancy of property by blacks. The covenant was enforced, the Hansberry family was evicted and Carl Hansberry sued. The case made it to the United States Supreme Court; Hansberry v. Lee (1940), however, did not overturn the constitutionality of racially restrictive covenants. It wasn’t until 1948, in Shelley v. Kraemer, that the court would find such covenants discriminatory.

In “Raisin,” the Younger family does not face a racially restrictive covenant when they buy a house in the white neighborhood of Clybourne Park. But they face two different threats.

From the opening scene of the play, we are made aware of the violence — “Set off another bomb yesterday” — menacing the Youngers and their dreams. The Youngers also face the coercion of the Clybourne Park Neighborhood Association. Unable to keep the Youngers out of the neighborhood through legal restrictions, Karl Lindner, a representative of the neighborhood association, has been sent to buy the Youngers out. Especially disturbing in the scene below is his attempt to justify his behavior, explaining that racial segregation is in everyone’s best interest.

We match this scene from “Raisin” with a 2013 article on the present state and persistence of housing discrimination in the United States.

Shaila Dewan, reporting several studies based on undercover investigations, finds that the United States has yet to achieve real equity in housing. Black couples and white couples seeking properties to rent or buy continue to receive unequal treatment.

According to Shaun Donovan, secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Although we’ve come a long way from the days of blatant, in-your-face housing injustice, discrimination still persists.”

Key Question: Do we all have the right to buy a home of our own, wherever we want?

Activity Sheets: As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or more of the three graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for our Text to Text feature:

• Comparing Two or More Texts
• Double-Entry Chart for Close Reading
• Document Analysis Questions

Text 1: Excerpt from ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ by Lorraine Hansberry, Act 2, Scene 3

LINDNER: Yes — that’s the way we feel out in Clybourne Park. And that’s why I was elected to come here this afternoon and talk to you people. Friendly like, you know, the way people should talk to each other and see if we couldn’t find some way to work this thing out. As I say, the whole business is a matter of caring about the other fellow. Anybody can see that you are a nice family of folks, hard working and honest I’m sure. (BENEATHA frowns slightly, quizzically, her head tilted regarding him ) Today everybody knows what it means to be on the outside of something. And of course, there is always somebody who is out to take advantage of people who don’t always understand.

WALTER: What do you mean?

LINDNER: Well — you see our community is made up of people who’ve worked hard as the dickens for years to build up that little community. They’re not rich and fancy people; just hard-working, honest people who don’t really have much but those little homes and a dream of the kind of community they want to raise their children in. Now, I don’t say we are perfect and there is a lot wrong in some of the things they want. But you’ve got to admit that a man, right or wrong, has the right to want to have the neighborhood he lives in a certain kind of way. And at the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background. I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.

BENEATHA: (with a grand and bitter gesture) This, friends, is the Welcoming Committee!

Continue this scene through Lindner’s speech that ends, “People can get awful worked up when they feel that their whole way of life and everything they’ve ever worked for is threatened.”

Text 2: Excerpt from ‘Discrimination in Housing Against Nonwhites Persists Quietly, U.S. Study Finds,’ by Shaila Dewan (The New York Times, June 11, 2013)

Discrimination against blacks, Hispanics and Asians looking for housing persists in subtle forms, according to a new national study commissioned by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Though less likely to face overt obstacles, like being refused an appointment to see a home, minority customers were shown fewer available units than whites with similar qualifications, the study found.

They were also asked more questions about their finances, according to the study, and given fewer offers of help financing a loan.

“Although we’ve come a long way from the days of blatant, in-your-face housing injustice, discrimination still persists,” Shaun Donovan, the department’s secretary, said in a telephone conference on Tuesday unveiling the findings. “And just because it has taken on a hidden form doesn’t make it any less harmful.”

In each of the study’s 8,000 tests, one white and one minority tester of the same gender and age, posing as equally well-qualified renters or buyers, visited the same housing provider or agent. In more than half the test cases, both testers were shown the same number of apartments or homes. But in cases where one tester was shown more homes or apartments, the white tester was usually favored, leading to a higher number of units shown to whites overall.

In one test, a white customer looking for a two-bedroom apartment was shown a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom and given applications for both, while a Hispanic customer who arrived two hours later was told that nothing was available. In another, a real estate agent refused to meet with a black tester who was not prequalified for a loan, while a white tester was given an appointment without being asked if she had prequalified.

The study was the fourth of its kind since 1977, when the results showed a starker form of discrimination known as door-slamming. In 17 percent of the cases in that study, whites were offered a unit when blacks were told that none were available. In 2012, when the new study was conducted, the vast majority of testers of all races were able to at least make an appointment to see a recently advertised house or apartment.

But once they arrived, they were given fewer options. Over all, black prospective renters were presented 11 percent fewer rentals than whites, Hispanics about 12 percent fewer rentals and Asians about 10 percent fewer rentals. As prospective buyers, blacks were presented 17 percent fewer homes and Asians 15 percent fewer homes, but Hispanics were given the opportunity to see roughly the same number of homes as whites.

White testers also were more frequently offered lower rents, told that deposits and other move-in costs were negotiable, or were quoted a lower price. Taking into account fees, deposits and rents, apartments were more likely to cost whites slightly less in the first year of rental than blacks might pay. …

Even subtle discrimination like steering minorities to certain neighborhoods or failing to offer them the homes most likely to increase in value would result in substantially weaker accumulation of wealth, said John Taylor, the president and chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which seeks to improve housing in underserved communities.

Polling shows that many Americans think financially stable customers have the same opportunities to obtain good housing regardless of race, he added.

“A study like this,” he said, “helps you understand that there really is very different treatment occurring when it comes to things like housing and lending.”

For Writing or Discussion:

• What strategy does Lindner use in order to persuade the Youngers to accept the association’s proposal? What is appealing about his argument? What is offensive about his suggestion? How does Walter respond to his efforts? Why do you think Walter responds as he does?
• What forms of housing discrimination persist today, according to a recent study discussed in the article? How has housing discrimination changed since 1977? What justifications do you think people use to defend and continue such practices? How would you compare a real estate agent today who doesn’t show an African-American family a house for sale in a white neighborhood with Lindner and the neighborhood association in “Raisin”? How have things changed? How have they remained the same?
• How does the social and racial context in which housing discrimination occurs today compare with the circumstances in which the Youngers experience it? Why, for example, do the Youngers want to get out of their apartment and move to a house in Clybourne Park? What specifically about the house and the neighborhood of Clybourne Park is attractive to the Youngers? What does the play suggest are the reasons that they buy a house outside of “their own community”? Do you think people today are still drawn to homes outside of “their own community” for similar reasons?
• Walter Younger’s life insurance policy represents a substantial financial windfall for the Youngers. Mama’s decision to use some of that money to buy a home in Clybourne Park represents the classic realization of the American dream. Use the article on housing discrimination to consider how achieving the American dream by purchasing a home can be complicated by race. Why, according to the article, is it more difficult for some to achieve this dream? And what kinds of long-term economic effects does housing discrimination have, according to the article?
• As the article explains, housing discrimination has been the subject of several studies over the years by the federal government through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Why do you think the federal government would study housing discrimination? What do you think is significant about the results of the research? What, if anything, do you think the government should do based on the results?
• Why do you think housing discrimination existed in the American past? Why do you think housing discrimination continues today? What do you think the existence of housing discrimination says about contemporary American society? Do you think we all should have the right to buy a home of our own, wherever we want? What do you think should be done to ensure that right?

Going Further:

Imagining a 1963 Conversation: In 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with several prominent African-Americans (PFD), including Lorraine Hansberry, the author James Baldwin, and the actress-singer Lena Horne, to discuss segregation in schools and other sources of racial tension building in the North. The article notes that the meeting was “secret” and that Kennedy chose to meet with these artists as opposed to civil rights activists.

What conclusions can you draw about the state of race relations in the United States at the time? What do you think about Mr. Kennedy’s strategy? Based on your reading of “A Raisin in the Sun,” imagine the conversation between Lorraine Hansberry and Robert F. Kennedy. What suggestions might the playwright have had for the attorney general? How do you think Mr. Kennedy might have reacted to Ms. Hansberry and her ideas?

Hurricane Sandy and Housing Discrimination: In a 2013 editorial , the Times editorial board reports on charges that “black and Hispanic citizens” who lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy faced discrimination. What does this editorial suggest about the continuing legacy of housing discrimination that is featured in “A Raisin in the Sun”? Imagine you are a civil rights lawyer working for the Fair Share Housing Center. How might you tie the issue of Sandy recovery aid to the larger history of housing discrimination in this country?

School Segregation, Then and Now: Broaden your understanding of racial segregation in the United States. Use The New York Times or the Internet to research school segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. Compare your findings with articles like this one or this one from the 2012 Times series “A System Divided” and the opinions expressed in the Room for Debate post “Is Segregation Back in U.S. Public Schools?,” which was published just after the 58th anniversary of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Why does segregation in schools persist to the extent that it does so many years after it was declared unconstitutional? How are students affected by attending schools that are largely segregated? What do you think the relationship is between school segregation and housing discrimination?

‘Raisin': ‘A Landmark Lesson in Being Black’? In this 1999 article, “A Landmark Lesson in Being Black,” Michael Anderson describes the effect of the 1959 Broadway debut of “A Raisin in the Sun”:

But until that evening, Broadway had never seen a play written by a black woman, nor a play with a black director, nor a commercially produced drama about black life, rather than musicals or comedy. The Broadway premiere of “A Raisin in the Sun” was as much a milestone in the nation’s social history as it was in American theater. “Never before,” commented James Baldwin, “had so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen onstage.”

Mr. Anderson also details how Lorraine Hansberry came to write the play, and the long struggle involved in raising the funds to produce it on Broadway. Do you think the play still carries such importance? Is it still a “landmark lesson” in the “truth of black people’s lives”? Why or why not?

From Sidney Poitier to Sean Combs:

Two years after its Broadway premiere, “A Raisin in the Sun” appeared in movie theaters, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. In the trailer for the 1961 film , the producer David Susskind provides a lengthy introduction that describes the awards the play received and the importance of its story before any scenes from the movie are shown.

Compare this to the introduction Sean Combs provides before the trailer, embedded above, for his 2008 made-for-TV version. What is similar and what is different about each of these introductions? Why do you think Mr. Susskind and Mr. Combs created them? What purposes do they serve?

“The Raisin Cycle”: Lorraine Hansberry’s play has inspired a number of reimaginings. Bruce Norris’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Clybourne Park” is both a prequel and sequel to “Raisin.” The first act centers on the white family and their decision to sell their house in the all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park to the Youngers. The second act centers on a white family buying the same house in what has become an all-black neighborhood, and shows the response they encounter from a black community worried about gentrification. Kwame Kwei-Armah’s work, “Beneatha’s Place,” focuses on Beneatha’s life in Africa in the first act, and then, about 50 years later, on her life at a California university. As Artistic Director of CenterStage in Baltimore, Mr. Kwei-Armah staged the three plays together in what he called “The Raisin Cycle.”

If you could reimagine a moment in connection with “Raisin,” what moment would you choose? Would you want to think about Big Walter and his life before the play begins? Would you be interested in drawing out the life that Travis Younger might have faced coming of age during the height of the Civil Rights Era? Write a “missing scene” in which you add your voice and vision to the Raisin Cycle somehow. Then, write a brief explanation of your creative choices. What inspired your decisions? How did you draw on your understanding of “Raisin” in what you wrote?

Update: April 4: A New Broadway Revival

Ben Brantley begins his review of this show by writing, “The spark of rebellion, the kind that makes a man stand up and fight, has almost been extinguished in Walter Lee Younger.” In fact, he writes, “this production of “Raisin” makes clearer than any I’ve seen before [that] Walter inhabits a world that ages men like him fast.”

How, according to this critic, does the production make audiences feel it is “happening in the present tense, in our own world of recessionary anxieties”? If you were to create a Text to Text pairing of your own that matched some scene, moment or line from the play with something in the news today, what would you choose? Why?

More Resources:

Times Topics Page | Lorraine Hansberry New York Times | A Raisin in the Sun (1961) Film Overview

New York Times 2008 TV Review | A Tale of Race and Family and a $10,000 Question

New York Times 1965 Obituary | Lorraine Hansberry, 34, Dies (PDF)

New York Times 2014 Article | ‘Raisin in the Sun’ Exhibit Opens at New York Public Library

New York Times 2014 Article | A New Website Dedicated to Lorraine Hansberry

Learning Network Lesson | Economic Inequality in America: Developing a New War on Poverty

Learning Network Lesson | Keeping the Dream Alive: Exploring the Lives and Works of Black American Playwrights

Learning Network Classic Lit Collection

This resource may be used to address the academic standards listed below.

Common Core E.L.A. Anchor Standards

1   Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2   Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

4   Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

9   Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

10   Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

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The Black Ambition of A Raisin in the Sun

Revisiting lorraine hansberry’s most famous play in the wake of the open letter to white american theater.

Stephen Perry, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, and Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun (1961), directed by Daniel Petrie. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures Corporation .

by Koritha Mitchell | September 4, 2020

When the curtains open on Lorraine Hansberry’s most famous play, A Raisin in the Sun , we see Ruth Younger bustling about a claustrophobic Chicago kitchenette: waking her loved ones, cooking, fretting. As the Youngers compete with other tenants for the bathroom down the hall, Hansberry uses stage directions and dialogue to suggest that cramped quarters strain relationships. Recently widowed, Lena Younger lives here with her adult son, Walter Lee, who is Ruth’s husband; their son, Travis; and Lena’s 20-year-old daughter, Beneatha, who wants to become a doctor. Mama Lena has received a $10,000 insurance check because her husband “worked hisself to death,” which Walter Lee wants to invest in a liquor store.

The play debuted in 1959 and made Hansberry the first African American woman dramatist produced on Broadway, and its tensions unfold as the United States worked to convince people of color that they would never be at home. Facing segregation and housing discrimination, African Americans cultivated what I call homemade citizenship —a deep sense of success and belonging that does not rely on mainstream recognition or civic inclusion.

Suburban home ownership became a barometer of American success in the 1930s and 1940s, with mortgage loans newly subsidized by the Federal Housing Administration. But Black and Brown citizens were systematically excluded , so most African Americans could not pursue home ownership until the 1950s. Placing Black people’s struggle to attain this marker of American achievement on Broadway, Hansberry accomplished a feat parallel to that of the family she portrayed. Both the Youngers and their creator encountered hostility for daring to reach for what the country defined as success.

Revisiting Hansberry’s 1959 triumph proves poignant in the wake of the open letter to “White American Theater,” which is part of the racial reckoning prompted by the video-recorded police murder of George Floyd. Signed by more than 350 practitioners and creators of color, including Lin Manuel Miranda and Viola Davis, the letter exposes how the theater world resembles other arenas: Its institutions prioritize solidarity statements over self-reflection, structural transformation, and material redress. The letter also suggests that theater criticism facilitates exclusion and condescension: “We have watched you amplify our voices when we are heralded by the press, but refuse to defend our aesthetic when we are not, allowing our livelihoods to be destroyed by a monolithic and racist critical culture.”

Though Hansberry became “ a darling of the theater world ,” according to biographer Imani Perry, she experienced the racism of its critical culture. Because United States citizenship is built on the exclusion of African Americans, even when Black success does not prompt naked brutality, it inspires condescending reminders of difference, of outsider status. A Raisin in the Sun therefore places a spotlight on what historian Carol Anderson calls white rage : In portraying Black ambition, the play also showcases the white hostility that always accompanies it.

Over the course of the play, as the Youngers pursue a better life, Mama Lena spends part of her insurance payout to place a down payment on a house in the Chicago suburb of Clybourne Park. In response, her son Walter Lee disappears for three days. When he returns, his hopelessness convinces Lena that she has helped the United States strip her son of his manhood and kill his dreams. So she gives him the $6,500 left after the down payment, instructing him to put $3,000 in a savings account for Beneatha’s medical school education and the rest in a checking account under his name. “I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be,” she says.

On moving day, Mama Lena is out when a representative of the suburban neighborhood association arrives. Karl Lindner, who is white, tells Walter Lee, “Our association is prepared, through the collective effort of our people, to buy the house from you at a financial gain to your family.”

Insulted by this “ civil ” effort to keep his family out of the neighborhood, Walter Lee declines. However, he later realizes he has been swindled out of every penny entrusted to him, having given it to an acquaintance who promised to speed up the liquor license process and then skipped town. He invites Lindner back and rehearses a speech to accept the humiliating offer.

In the end, Walter Lee cannot stomach the routine he has practiced. “We have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by brick,” he tells Lindner.

“What do you think you are going to gain by moving into a neighborhood where you just aren’t wanted?” Lindner demands.

The play ends with the Youngers moving out of the tenement, heading for the suburbs, despite every indication that their fellow Americans will not welcome them. Mama Lena is the last to exit the apartment, and her pensive farewell serves as a prelude to a future of offstage malevolence.

Hansberry’s drama highlights the mundane cruelty of denying people of color desirable homes. While the federal government encouraged “all” Americans to pursue home ownership, FHA redlining enacted bloodless violence by making whiteness a qualification for access to the American Dream. At the same time, the labor movement’s “family wage” campaign empowered white heads of household while excluding non-white people, given that (like most American institutions) unions discriminated based on race, as cultural historian Chandan Reddy has shown.

Employment and housing discrimination prevented most citizens of color from organizing their households according to the nuclear family ideal, a male breadwinner and his financially dependent wife and children. The few whose households fit this mold achieved a level of success that would not go unchecked. White Americans attacked families of color who dared to move into “their” neighborhoods. Thus, declarations about the nation’s preferred domestic configuration amounted to discursive violence—telling everyone to aspire to an ideal while affirming only white examples of it—that encouraged physical violence.

The Youngers understand that they invite injury by clinging to a suburban definition of success. As they reach for what white Americans will attack them for securing, they do not pursue white acceptance, but instead, claim what they believe to be rightfully theirs. Aligning with the tradition traced by legal historian Martha S. Jones, Walter Lee declares his family to be birthright citizens , telling Lindner, “This is my son, and he makes the sixth generation of my family in this country.”

Interpretations of Raisin have been shaped by the presumption that it is a protest play, that it resists segregation. This lens obscures what most drives the action: a pursuit of success. If one focuses on accomplishment as African Americans do, it becomes clear that pursuing achievement in the face of white opposition requires the Youngers to define and re-define the parameters of success. They are not pursuing integration as a form of protest or resistance, but rather, to accomplish goals and claim resources. The play reveals that what has been framed as “integration” is really about getting white people to stop hoarding everything desirable. Further, “civil rights” are human rights—pursued not for “equality” with white people but as an assertion of clarity about one’s due.

While pursuing success, most members of the Younger family prioritize patriarchy, so the play showcases a reality that protest-obsessed audiences miss: the damage done in Black households when prevailing ideas about gender are not questioned. The Youngers subscribe to the rhetoric of the 1950s Black church that often vilified single women’s goals. Christianity’s message of affirmation routinely failed to reach single black women—represented in Raisin by Beneatha—even in their own homes. Beneatha personifies all that must remain “beneath,” as Mama Lena pursues a particular vision of success. Beneatha’s future is sacrificed because, although Walter Lee shows little capacity for leadership, he is male and therefore his mother is determined to make a leader of him. Beneatha is not only teased for her pan-African sensibilities and denigrated for valuing career over marriage, but also, in an iconic scene, she is slapped by her mother in the name of God.

This complexity has been overlooked because theater criticism kept Hansberry preoccupied with defending Lena’s humanity. White critics’ casual vilification of Mama Lena as an emasculating matriarch revealed a lack of empathy for the pressures she faced, and led Hansberry to defend Mama Lena as fiercely as Mama Lena had defended Walter Lee.

However, if one focuses on how African Americans would encounter the work’s theme of Black achievement, the terms of the debate change. In the Younger household, success is defined in patriarchal terms, devaluing half the community. Scholars and readers rarely notice this, however, because most insist upon seeing Mama Lena as the embodiment of resistance to racism. Even the insightful biographer Perry argues, regarding Lena, that “in Lorraine’s literary world, mother wisdom is trustworthy though subtle, and paternal inheritances are thorny and overpowering.” If Lena’s behavior is examined not as a reaction to white hostility but for its impact on Black people, however, it becomes clear that when family members do not live up to patriarchal ideals, she not only withholds affirmation; she is violent. Besides slapping Beneatha, she “starts to beat [Walter Lee] senselessly in the face” for losing the insurance money. The Younger household is not a safe haven, especially for women who question (divinely ordained) male leadership.

Perry, Hansberry’s most nuanced chronicler, notes the playwright’s frustration with white critics’ failure to engage the work itself. A crucial question therefore arises: “How does one navigate racial perceptions that overlay everything … such that they effectively become part of the production no matter what the artist does? For Lorraine the answer was to become a critic.”

Hansberry could not ignore what the recent open letter to white American theater calls a “monolithic and racist critical culture,” so she wrote cultural criticism herself. Nevertheless, the complexity of her creative work proves undeniable, if examined with Black audience members in mind. Because African Americans pursue success despite the odds against them, the art they produce while doing so offers insight into how they remain invested in accomplishment despite the white rage it attracts.

Debating what constitutes achievement is part of the labor of cultivating homemade citizenship, but it is complicated work. As performance theorist Soyica Colbert suggests , Raisin ’s tense scenes expose “the conditions that enable Mama to create a house” as well as those “that establish Beneatha’s homelessness.” Beneatha is outnumbered, yet Hansberry’s play honors her struggle. With her last words, Beneatha stands firm: “I wouldn’t marry [the man everyone approves of] if he was Adam and I was Eve!” In preserving Beneatha’s bold perspective, Hansberry’s work encourages African Americans to question whether their definitions of success account for the entire community.

This message remains relevant, as Black and Brown women succeed against the odds, only to become targets for abuse . When hostility does not come in the form of attack, it manifests as erasure: Black women’s leadership is often relegated to the margins , even as their ideas set the course that many others later advocate. Meanwhile, Black and Brown women continue to be ridiculed whenever they prioritize their own goals rather than simply serve everyone else. These tensions are as deep now as they were in Hansberry’s time, and we should heed her call to address them both within communities of color and on the national stage.

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'A Raisin in the Sun' Reveals Playwright Lorraine Hansberry's Black Activism

At the heart of Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun' is the universal message of the desire for social progress amid the differing opinions on how to achieve it.

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Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) wrote A Raisin in the Sun using inspiration from her years growing up in the segregated South Side of Chicago. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a crusader against that very segregation.

Just months before her untimely death, the playwright and activist spoke out against how little society had changed: “the problem is that Negroes are just as segregated in the city of Chicago now as they were then and my father died a disillusioned exile in another country.”

Hansberry's book follows the Younger family

Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun is set in a one-bedroom apartment shared by three generations of the Younger family: Walter and Ruth, their son Travis, Walter’s sister Beneatha, and their mother Lena.

The Younger family is waiting for a $10,000 life insurance check resulting from the father’s recent death. The windfall represents a kind of liberation to the family with the central conflict over how to spend the money. Mama (Lena) puts down a payment on a house in an all-white neighborhood (Clybourne Park), while Walter wants to invest in a liquor store. Mama relents, with the condition that they carve out $3,000 for Beneatha’s college education.

On moving day, a chance to make up for the lost money comes when a white representative offers the family a sum of money to prevent them from integrating a white neighborhood. Walter kicks the representative out at first, but after his friend runs off with the money — leaving the family’s dreams in jeopardy — he calls the man back to accept his offer. Trying to justify his decision, Walter screams out to Mama: “I didn’t make this world! It was given to me this way!” Yet, in the final moments of the play, Walter ultimately rejects the offer, and the Younger family leaves for their new home.

Hansberry became the first Black woman to write a Broadway play

When she set out to write A Raisin in the Sun , Hansberry told her husband, Robert Nemiroff, ''I'm going to write a social drama about Negroes that will be good art.”

Hansberry not only became the first Black woman to write a Broadway play, but she also made the unprecedented decision to have a Black director at the helm ( Lloyd Richards ). Centered around a total of 10 leading and featured roles for African American actors, A Raisin in the Sun made its Broadway debut on March 11, 1959. Up until then, there had only been 10 dramas authored by Black playwrights (all men) and only one, Langston Hughes ' Mulatto , lasted a year.

Hansberry's Broadway production starred Sidney Poitier and quickly became a hot ticket, running over 500 performances. Touring and international productions followed and a film version was released in 1961 (with the screenplay written by Hansberry — at her insistence — as part of the stipulations of selling the film rights).

The play was nominated for four Tony awards and was named the “best play” by the New York Drama Critics' Circle , making Hansberry the first African American and youngest person to win the award.

Other iterations followed: A Raisin in the Sun was adapted into a Tony award-winning musical in 1975 ( Raisin ) and was filmed for television in 1989 with Esther Rolle as the Younger family matriarch and Danny Glover as Walter.

Hansberry's most-famous work has had a lasting impact

Since then, Hansberry's most famous work has been twice revived on Broadway this millennium. The 2004 cast was led by Sean Combs as Walter Younger, and the production won a featured actress Tony for Audra McDonald, and Phylicia Rashad became the first African American to win Best Actress in a Play. It was filmed for broadcast television in 2008.

The 2014 production starring Denzel Washington won Tonys for Best Revival, Featured Actress and Director Kenny Leon (who also directed the 2004 production and 2008 television film).

Hansberry’s story, including the genesis of her best-known work, was the subject of a recent PBS American Masters documentary, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart , which not only focused on her as a playwright and journalist but also as an activist.

The activist side of Hansberry is an important quality to distinguish, considering activism is in the DNA of A Raisin in the Sun . Walter asks Mama, Why “Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park.” Mama replies, “Well, I guess there’s going to be some now... I just tried to find the nicest place for the least amount of money for my family... Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out always seem to cost twice as much.”

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Reflecting on “A Raisin in the Sun”: the 2008 Adaptation’s Impact

This essay about the 2008 television adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” discusses how the film brought Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play to a new generation, emphasizing its themes of dreams, racial inequality, and identity. Directed by Kenny Leon and featuring performances by Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan, the adaptation is praised for its powerful portrayal of the Younger family’s struggle against socio-economic and racial barriers in 1950s Chicago. The essay highlights the actors’ acclaimed performances and the adaptation’s focus on systemic racism, making the story resonate with contemporary audiences. It argues that the film not only serves as entertainment but also as an educational tool, bridging historical and present-day discussions on race, class, and the American dream. The 2008 version of “A Raisin in the Sun” is lauded for its accessibility, bringing Hansberry’s message of hope and resilience to a wider audience, and affirming the play’s status as a timeless piece of American drama. Also at PapersOwl you can find more free essay examples related to A Raisin In The Sun.

How it works

The 2008 television adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” brought Lorraine Hansberry’s iconic play back into the cultural spotlight, offering new generations a lens through which to explore enduring themes of dreams, racial inequality, and the search for identity. This version, directed by Kenny Leon and starring an ensemble cast led by Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan, breathed fresh life into Hansberry’s narrative, connecting historical social issues with contemporary resonance.

“A Raisin in the Sun” tells the story of the Younger family, a Black family living in Chicago in the 1950s, grappling with poverty, racism, and internal conflict as they strive for a better life.

The play’s title, inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem,” evokes the deferred dreams of African Americans during the mid-20th century, a theme as poignant today as it was when the play first premiered. The 2008 adaptation underscores this timelessness, emphasizing the universal struggle for dignity, belonging, and fulfillment.

One of the adaptation’s greatest strengths lies in its performances. Phylicia Rashad’s portrayal of Lena Younger, the matriarch whose strength and resilience anchor the family, earned her critical acclaim and a NAACP Image Award. Audra McDonald, as Ruth Younger, delivers a powerful performance that captures the weariness and hope of a woman caught between her own desires and her duties to her family. Sean Combs, though a less experienced actor compared to his co-stars, brings a palpable sense of ambition and frustration to the role of Walter Lee Younger, whose dreams of entrepreneurship conflict with the realities of his socio-economic position.

The 2008 adaptation does not shy away from the original play’s exploration of racial and economic injustice. It highlights the systemic barriers faced by the Younger family, from discriminatory housing policies to the personal prejudices that stifle their aspirations. This emphasis on the structural dimensions of racism, combined with intimate portrayals of the characters’ inner lives, allows the film to resonate with audiences confronting similar issues today. The adaptation’s setting in the 1950s serves not only as a historical backdrop but also as a mirror reflecting contemporary struggles, bridging the gap between past and present.

Moreover, this adaptation expands the play’s accessibility to a wider audience. By bringing “A Raisin in the Sun” into homes through television, the producers ensured that Hansberry’s message reached beyond the theater-going public, sparking conversations about race, class, and the American dream in diverse settings. The film invites viewers to reflect on the progress made since the 1950s and the challenges that remain, making it not just entertainment but a tool for education and empathy.

In conclusion, the 2008 television adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” serves as a powerful tribute to Lorraine Hansberry’s legacy. It captures the essence of the original play while highlighting its relevance in the 21st century, reminding viewers of the enduring strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Through stellar performances and a faithful yet fresh interpretation of the text, the adaptation continues to inspire and challenge, proving the timeless nature of Hansberry’s work. As we reflect on this adaptation, we are reminded of the importance of storytelling in navigating the complexities of identity, aspiration, and social justice, making “A Raisin in the Sun” a beacon of American drama that continues to shine brightly.

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Reflecting on "A Raisin in the Sun": The 2008 Adaptation's Impact. (2024, Feb 20). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/reflecting-on-a-raisin-in-the-sun-the-2008-adaptations-impact/

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Reflecting on "A Raisin in the Sun": The 2008 Adaptation's Impact . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/reflecting-on-a-raisin-in-the-sun-the-2008-adaptations-impact/ [Accessed: 17 Apr. 2024]

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The Struggle Against Racism in Housing as Revealed in A Raisin in the Sun

by Mollie Mandell

Despite many constitutional amendments enacted after the end of the Civil War, African-Americans were still denied many civil rights one hundred years later, which affected all aspects of their lives.  Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun , used her family’s experience with discrimination as inspiration for the Younger family in order to shine a light on the specific racism that resulted from the residential segregation that dominated Chicago’s housing industry post WWII.   The playwright depicts the Youngers’ substandard living conditions, the boundaries placed on their housing choices, and Lindner’s pretense of community outreach, as emanating from the racially restrictive housing covenants that existed at that point in history.  And, Hansberry ultimately portrays how this racism follows the Younger family even as they pursue a better life outside the ghetto.

        Hansberry effectively establishes that the Youngers are unhappy and disappointed, living in an overcrowded ghetto apartment in a black neighborhood.  And, that they have not fulfilled their dream of the comfortable life they feel they have earned.  The play opens with a graphic description of the family’s apartment and its mediocre furniture whose “primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years” (Hansberry 977).   Not only is the furniture overused and “tired,” but the carpet is “worn” and is “showing its weariness” (Hansberry 977).   In addition to the depressing physical state of the apartment is the fact that it must be shared by three generations, forcing Travis to sleep on the couch, Lena and Beneatha to share a room and the whole family to use a common hall bathroom.  Added to this are the unsanitary conditions as evidenced by Beneatha spraying insecticide and Travis playing outside with rats.  Gordon describes the environment in her article, “Somewhat like War,” “Hansberry uses the bloody demise of a [rat]…. to establish a pervasive reality of ghetto life early in the play. Where there is little or no municipal sanitation service or landlord upkeep, rats and roaches thrive” (Gordon 127).  This lack of sanitation on behalf of landlords adds to the decreased quality of life experienced in the ghetto.  As Gordon further explains about the play’s setting, “[l]ocating the Younger family in Chicago’s South Side, Hansberry directly engages crises produced by ghetto economies and dehumanizing living conditions, restricted educational access, and explosive encounters along urban color lines” (Gordon 123).  Not only is their present environment hampered by the poor conditions, but their future is as well–-life in the ghetto impacts generations to come due to the lack of good school districts.  It is this segregated and inferior lifestyle that is the root of friction between those who have no choice but to live in the ghetto and those who have the freedom to move out.

        Lena hopes the insurance check will lift them out of this ghetto.  She reveals her dream saying, “Been thinking that we maybe could meet the notes on a little old two-story somewhere with a yard where Travis could play in the summertime, if we use part of the insurance for a down payment” (Hansberry 989).  She knows the move will lead to a better life for all of them, especially her grandson.  She further laments on her mediocre lifestyle saying that, “We hadn’t planned on living here more than a year...You should know all the dreams I had ‘bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back – and didn’t none of it happen” (Hansberry 990).  Lena reflects on her dream that was never realized and is disappointed by this.  Hansberry effectively establishes that the Youngers are unhappy living in their ghetto apartment, in a neighborhood whose boundaries are drawn along color lines, and that they have been unable to fulfill their dream of homeownership.

        Hansberry illustrates that the Youngers’ substandard living conditions are not just due to economic disparity, but are directly the result of Chicago’s clearly defined racially restrictive housing covenants that originated from Jim Crow Laws.  In the play, Walter indicates this segregation when he woefully tells Lena, “Mama – sometimes when I’m downtown and I pass them cool, quiet-looking restaurants where them white boys are sitting back and talking ‘bout things…. Sitting there turning deals worth millions of dollars” (Hansberry 1007).  His feelings of exclusion are not unfounded but are based on specific laws that bar his entry to white society. Tripp explains these laws in the biography, The Importance of Lorraine Hansberry :

Since the days of slavery, the custom had been to keep the races separated. The Jim Crow laws written in the early 1900’s legalized this separation and enforced an inferior status for blacks… In the early 1930’s and 1940’s state laws strengthened segregation. Fair housing legislation did not exist.  Whites plotted to keep blacks segregated by refusing to sell or rent homes in certain neighborhoods to blacks.             (Tripp 19-20)  

This discrimination of Blacks bled into all facets of life: restaurants, transportation, workplace and housing. 

        Lena returns to announce her purchase of a house with the insurance money, and the family immediately challenges her choice of neighborhood.  When Ruth asks Lena “Clybourne Park? Mama, they ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park,” she confirms she is aware of the laws that were created to specifically keep blacks and whites separated (Hansberry 1018).  Unfortunately, white real estate owners took advantage of black families who wanted to purchase a home—the cost of living in the ghetto was much higher than renting or buying outside Chicago’s “Black Belt” (the term used for the city’s South Side) (Gordon 124).  Lena experienced this first hand as evidenced when she answers Ruth: “Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses.  I did the best I could…I just tried to find the nicest place for the least amount of money for my family,” knowing her money is better spent outside the ghetto (Hansberry 1018).  Hansberry effectively illustrates how a history of prejudice led to racially restrictive housing covenants, which effectively precluded black families from living in designated whites-only neighborhoods in Chicago, and kept them in the ghetto.

Hansberry establishes that Lena’s purchase of a home in this white neighborhood is a bold stance against prejudice.  This mirrors Hansberry’s father’s quest for equality and justice as exemplified by his State and Supreme Court cases, which challenged Chicago’s racially restrictive housing covenants.  In the play, Lena tells Travis, “She [Lena] went out and she bought you a house… It’s going to be yours when you get to be a man … It’s just a plain little old house – but it’s made good and solid—and it will be ours… it makes a difference in a man when he can walk on floors that belong to him” (Hansberry 1017-1018).  Lena clearly puts her dreams for future generations above any fears she may have of moving to Clybourne Park.  The “man” refers not only to her grandson Travis, but her son, Walter, because she knows that home ownership functions not only as an investment, but also as a source of much needed pride for her troubled son. 

According to Hansberry in her autobiography, Young, Gifted & Black, like Lena, her father also took a stand against racism: “My father was typical of a generation of Negroes who believed that the ‘American way’ could successfully be made to work to democratize the United States.  Thus…he spent a small personal fortune… and many years of his life fighting …Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation’s ugliest ghettoes” (Nemiroff 51).  Carl Hansberry felt his family had every right, no matter their color, to pursue the “American way” and utilized the court system to fight for this dream.  Tripp illuminates the link between the play and the case: “When Lorraine was eight years old her father decided he would test the Jim Crow laws and the concept of restrictive covenants by buying a home in an area restricted to whites by law…Carl lost the case in state court…but appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C…. Finally, in 1940, the Supreme Court reversed the state’s decision in the case known as Hansberry vs. Lee.  It became one of the central ideas of her first play” (Tripp 20-21).  Hansberry infuses Lena with these qualities of courage and fortitude.  And, Lena also challenges her family to follow her lead.  When Ruth states that there are no black people in Clybourne Park, Lena answers without any hesitation, “Well, I guess there’s going to be some now,” making it clear she has no intention of backing down (Hansberry 1023).  Hansberry effectively establishes the connection between Lena’s challenge of her housing situation and Carl Hansberry’s quest for justice and that both are courageous and unprecedented acts.  

Hansberry reveals that Lindner represents the type of racism that originates not just from these government laws, but also on behalf of average individuals who camouflage their bigotry in seemingly calm and eloquent language.  Lindner’s prejudice is revealed when he coolly tells the family,

A man, right or wrong, has the right to want to have the neighborhood he lives in a certain kind of way. And, at the moment, the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background. I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t even enter into it … our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.         (Hansberry 1033)

Here, Linder clearly defines his right to live wherever and however he wants, but contrary to what he states, he uses prejudice to deny the Younger family this same right because of their race.  The term “common background” is merely a euphemism for skin color.  He then completely shifts the blame away from the whites to the “Negro families” for wanting to live on their own where they are “happier,” but it is obvious that it is the whites that are happier with this arrangement.  Hansberry, clarifying Lindner’s persona explains, “I have treated Mr. Lindner as a human being merely because he is one; that does not make the meaning of his call less malignant, less sick. I could no more imagine myself allowing the Youngers to accept his obscene offer of money than I could imagine myself allowing them to accept a cash payment for their own murder” (Nemiroff 131-132).  Lindner’s offer is disparaging and patronizing to the Youngers, despite his own belief that it is equitable.  These acts on behalf of individuals can be just as harmful if not more than the acts of government, because they are more personal and calculated and therefore more offensive.

Linder is completely blind to this bigotry.  When he tells Walter, who refuses the buyout of the house, “You just can’t force people to change their hearts, son,” he misses the remark’s double meaning (Hansberry 1035).  While speaking to Walter’s stubbornness, Lindner is also showing his own narrow-mindedness.  Gordon argues that Hansberry employs Mr. Lindner “to demonstrate the seemingly benign ways that northern whites deny racial discrimination, romanticize their own paternalism, and repudiate black self-determination” (Gordon 129).  Lindner clearly disavows his own intolerance, elevates himself to a position above the Youngers merely because he is white, and refuses to accept the Younger’s equality.  Hansberry illustrates how racism, sanctioned by state laws, leads to increased racism on behalf of the individual.

            Hansberry establishes that the Youngers’ decision to move to Clybourne Park does not mean they have overcome this racism, but the threats will follow them, similar to the violence that followed the Hansberry family when they moved into a white neighborhood.  In the play, Mrs. Johnson updates the Youngers on current events: “You mean you ain’t read ‘bout them colored people that was bombed out their place out there?  Ain’t it something how bad these here white folks is getting here in Chicago! Lord, getting so you think you are right down in Mississippi!” and points to the paper, reading aloud: “Negroes Invade Clybourne Park –Bombed!” (Hansberry 1022-1023).   Most Blacks left the South to escape its brutal realities, only to move to northern states and encounter the same type of treatment.  Lena counters the neighbor’s dim view saying, “We done thought about all that Mis’ Johnson,” and demonstrates that she knows fully what her family will be up against (Hansberry 1018). 

The aggression the Youngers will face has roots in Hansberry’s own life.  In an interview in the New Yorker , Hansberry remembers her childhood in a white neighborhood and tells the reporter, “[My mother] sat in that house for eight months with us – while Daddy spent most of his time in Washington fighting his case – in what was a very hostile neighborhood…a mob gathered.  We went inside, and while we were in our living room, a brick came crashing through the window with such force it embedded itself in the opposite wall. I was the one the brick almost hit” (White 34).  This experience although horrific, did not sway the Hansberrys to move and became a theme in the play.

It becomes very clear that the Youngers also have every intention to stand their ground and move to the white neighborhood. Upon hearing this, Lindner not so subtly threatens: “What do you think you are going to gain by moving into a neighborhood where you just aren’t wanted and where some elements – well – people can get awful worked up when they feel that their whole way of life and everything they’ve worked for is threatened?” (Hansberry 1033).  Lindner, although previously relying on more soft-spoken tactics, reverts to using more threatening speech.  He is incredulous that the Youngers do not see eye-to-eye with him, and his last words, “I sure hope you people know what you’re getting into,” forebodes the neighborhood’s plans for retaliation (Hansberry 1051). Hansberry effectively establishes that the Youngers’ fight for equality and peace of mind will continue on in their new place of residence despite the expressions of happiness they show at the prospect of leaving the ghetto. [1]

Hansberry utilized her play, A Raisin in the Sun , as a vehicle to expose the unfairness of racially restrictive housing covenants in Post WWII Chicago.  These laws were created by the government and condoned by individual Americans.  Through the actions and experiences of the Younger family, Hansberry expressed her own pain of moving to an unwelcoming white neighborhood.  She personified the Youngers with the same purpose exhibited by her father—to pursue a dream of homeownership, and to live and thrive despite the hostile environment.  Both the Younger family and the Hansberry family made a commitment to overcome racial prejudice in order to secure freedoms for future generations. Unfortunately, resistance from the white community was very slow to change.

Works Cited

Gordon, Michelle. “Somewhat like War: The Aesthetics of Segregation, Black

Liberation and ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’” African American Review. Spring 2008: 121-133. Jstor. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” Literature: A Portable Anthology . Eds.

Janet Gardner, Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl, & Peter Schakel. Boston: MA, 2012.  976-1052. Print.

Nemiroff, Robert. To Be Young Gifted and Black: An informal Autobiography of Lorraine

Hansberry . New York: Penguin Books, 1969. Print.

Tripp, Janet. The Importance of Lorraine Hansberry. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998.

White, E.B. “Talk of the Town.” New Yorker , 9 May 1959. Web. 26 Nov. 2012

[1] According to Gordon, Hansberry in responding to a critic’s misinterpretation of the play’s ending as a happy one, “once huffed in an interview, ‘If he thinks that’s a happy ending, I invite him to come live in one of the communities where the Youngers are going’…The Youngers are fully aware that their breech of Chicago’s color line will trigger hostility and likely terrorism” (Gordon 130).

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Raisin in The Sun — Themes in a Raisin in the Sun

Themes in a Raisin in The Sun

• Categories: A Raisin in The Sun

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Words: 557 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 557 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Racial discrimination, family dynamics, mama's dream, walter's dream, beneatha's dream, housing discrimination, segregation and inequality, conflicts between generations, gender roles and expectations.

• Wilkerson, Isabel. "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." Vintage Books, 2010.
• Ward, Candace. "Wish You Were Here: A Raisin in the Sun and the American Dreams." University of California Press, 2016.
• Hansberry, Lorraine. "A Raisin in the Sun." Vintage Books, 2004.

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