Raisin in the sun

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“Raisin in the Sun”
Lorraine Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun” typically talks about unfulfilled dreams. The book portrays everyone in the Younger family as having a dream. Beneatha, for instance, hopes to become a doctor. Her elder brother, Walter, on the other hand, wants to invest in business so that he can have money and help his family in the long-run. Lena, the mother of the two, dreams of having at least a good home for her family (Hansberry 12). The Younger family strives to realize these dreams throughout the story; achieving or failing to achieve these dreams define the happiness or sadness of the entire family.
The Younger family is an underprivileged African-American family residing on the southern side of Chicago. Although the Youngers give the impression of a family alienated from the American middle-class culture, the family harbors the same avid dreams as most of the Americans. In the mid-20th century, owning a good house, having a big car, and having a happy family was the conventional American dream. Hansberry also tends to portray the Youngers in the same manner, but with a slight distinction. The family wants to live the American dream. However, their efforts to obtain the semblance of the American dream dramatically differ from efforts of similar suburban families because they are a low-class African-American family. As such, the Youngers live in a pensive world in which becoming a middle-class family remains a reverie.
A comparison of the contents of “Raisin in the Sun” to the Lorraine Hansberry’s biography in the Chicago Public Library reveals that the family she refers to in the play is indeed her family (n.

p.). Following the passing of their patriarch, Hansberry’s family was expecting an insurance payment which they thought would change their life but things did not work out as they thought. This play depicts the life of most African-American families in the American society.

Works Cited
Chicago Public Library. “Lorraine Hansberry Biography.” Chicago Public Library, 2017, www.chipublib.org/lorraine-hansberry-biography/.
Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun” New York: Vintage, 1994, pp.1-144