Notes

LITERARY ANALYSIS
RAISIN IN THE SUN

TITLE ;
A Raisin in the Sun is a play about an African American family aspiring to move beyond segregation and disenfranchisement in 1950s Chicago. Despite its specific era, the work speaks universally to the desire to improve one's circumstances while disagreeing on the best way of achieving them.

CHARACTERS ;
Walter Lee Younger
The protagonist of the play. Walter is a dreamer. He wants to be rich and devises plans to acquire wealth with his friends, particularly Willy Harris. When the play opens, he wants to invest his father’s insurance money in a new liquor store venture. He spends the rest of the play endlessly preoccupied with discovering a quick solution to his family’s various problems.

Beneatha Younger (“Bennie”)
Mama’s daughter and Walter’s sister. Beneatha is an intellectual. Twenty years old, she attends college and is better educated than the rest of the Younger family. Some of her personal beliefs and views have distanced her from conservative Mama. She dreams of being a doctor and struggles to determine her identity as a well-educated Black woman.

Lena Younger (“Mama”)
Walter and Beneatha’s mother. The matriarch of the family, Mama is religious, moral, and maternal. She wants to use her husband’s insurance money as a down payment on a house with a backyard to fulfill her dream for her family to move up in the world.

Ruth Younger
Walter’s wife and Travis’s mother. Ruth takes care of the Youngers’ small apartment. Her marriage to Walter has problems, but she hopes to rekindle their love. She is about thirty, but her weariness makes her seem older. Constantly fighting poverty and domestic troubles, she continues to be an emotionally strong woman. Her almost pessimistic pragmatism helps her to survive.

Travis Younger
Walter and Ruth’s sheltered young son. Travis earns some money by carrying grocery bags and likes to play outside with other neighborhood children, but he has no bedroom and sleeps on the living-room sofa.

PLOT
A. EXPOSITION
The exposition of a narrative is the initial dramatic question or dramatic situation. In most narratives, it comes right at the beginning. In Lorraine Hansberry 's play "A Raisin in the Sun," the dramatic question is whether or not Lena Younger will spend her insurance check on a new home or help Walter invest in a liquor store.

B. RISING ACTION
Ruth discovers that she is pregnant; Mama makes a down payment on a house; Mama gives Walter the remaining insurance money; Walter invests the money in the liquor store venture.

C. CLIMAX
Bobo tells the Youngers that Willy has run off with all of Walter’s invested insurance money; Asagai makes Beneatha realize that she is not as independent as she thinks.

D. Falling Action
Walter refuses Mr. Lindner’s offer to not move; the Youngers move out of the apartment to their new house in the white neighborhood; Beneatha finds new strength in Asagai.

E. Hansberry herself debated if the ending to A Raisin in the Sun was truly an optimistic outcome, but the conclusion of the play is indeed a favorable one because Mama Lena was able to teach her family, through their trials, postponed dreams, and ambitions, how to persevere, putting the Youngers in a much better position than the were in when the play opened.

CONFLICT;
In A Raisin in the Sun, Ruth’s internal conflict about whether to terminate her pregnancy extends to an external conflict with her mother-in-law, who opposes the idea. She also has conflicts with her husband and sister-in-law over their constant fighting. Other conflicts with Walter include his ideas about business and potential partners.

THEME ;
Dreams: The characters in the play are driven by their individual dreams of success but are often prevented from realizing them.

Race and racism: The Youngers refuse to give in to their future neighbors’ racism when they decide to keep their new house in the all-white Clybourne Park.

The different types of wealth: Wealth means different things to different

COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATION;
A Raisin in the Sun, is a marvelous film and brilliant play. It is, from my perspective, an American classic and I believe one of the most underrated American plays of all time. I recommend it to any man that is struggling to find themselves or trying to recapture what is real and what is untouchable within our souls and within our dreams.