Essays on a Raisin in The Sun

Success/Values: Walter Lee defines success as material and financial gain. Beneatha defines success as self-actualization, or learning about and nurturing oneself. But to their mother, Lena,success is less self-centered and lies more in creating a happy, healthy family. Lena frequently compares her children’s values to...

Walt Disney once said “If you can dream it you can achieve it.” Dreams have a great importance in A Raisin in the Sun, with the play’s name coming from a 1951 Langston Hughes poem titled Harlem. In the poem, part of which serves as...

The American Dream is the idea that everyone living in the US has a uniform chance to attain their dream through perseverance, hard work, and aspiration. Some personalized dreams could be earning success, obtaining money, or winning the love of your life. This is a...

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over — Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags...

A Raisin in the Sun is a play about an African American family that is going to receive an inheritance because of a death in the family. In this play their is sexism, racism, and many other cultural differences that we might not have been...

When watching a film, such as A Raisin in the Sun, one has to go into it with an open mind and a little skepticism. I generally don’t like older movies because of the way the people dress, the acting, and the quality of the...

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun challenges the stereotype of 1950’s America as a country full of doting, content housewives. The women in this play, Mama, Ruth and Beneatha, represent three generations of black women who, despite their double fronted subordination, continue to dream...

The African-American experience of growing up in America changed dramatically throughout the course of the twentieth century, thus leading to differing views between the older and younger generations. In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, the character of Mama was raised during a...

The American Dream varies for individuals, but for most it includes providing a stable home for their children and ensuring future generations will have more opportunities to become successful. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she carefully develops the characters...

Raisin in the sun by Lorraine Hansberry is truly moving piece that takes its readers into lives of an African American family in the 1950s. The Younger’s are an impoverished African American family that struggles to make ends meet. But see a chance to escape...

“We’re people, we’re just like the birds and the bees, We’d rather die on our feet, Than be livin’ on our knees” (“James Brown Lyrics”). These lyrics for James Brown’s classic soul hit “Say It Loud (I’m Black And I’m Proud)” could have easily been...

Money is one way to achieve one of the “American Dreams.” The “American Dream” is different for everyone and that dream for most people depends on how they were raised. There are many plays that critique the “American Dream” but only two will be focused...

Walter’s and Beneatha’s attitudes about money Walter believes that money is mandatory to achieve happiness. He feels that investing money plays a huge role in gaining money, which is why he wants to invest in a Liquor company, which ultimately fails, and he loses all...

What describes family is not the people who are blood related or someone who has an obligation. Family is loving someone unconditionally and mutually; family is those who greet the worst self of someone without judgement and still stick around after; family is the people...

Money and acquisitiveness have always had the ability to turn people into someone they are not. Greed can tear apart families and friendships when a person neglects others for their own benefit. This is depicted perfectly in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun...

The film ”A Raisin in the Sun” was very absorbing film. It touches on the “Black family” with big dreams but not “Big money”. The family of the film consisted of Lena, of the undefined leader of the family, Walter, chauffeur who had big dreams,...

A melodrama is a film which appeals to the emotions of its audience, on a higher level than the simple “drama” genre. The characters of a melodrama are often stereotyped and exaggerated to indicate something about the culture of the times, making their traits illustrations...