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UFPB/ CCHLA / DLEM

Discipline: North-American literature III Professor: Sandra Luna 

Student: João Francisco da Silva Neto 

HANDOUT – A RAISIN IN THE SUN

Title:  A Raisin in the Sun, comes from the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes.

 Harlem

 By Langston Hughes

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

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Time / place of first production: On March, 11, 1959 /Ethel Barrymore Theatre 

Time/ place written: 1957. New York Author: Lorraine Hansberry

Author’s biobraphy: 

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (05, 19, 1930  –  01, 12, 1965) was an African -American playwright and writer. Her play A Raisin in the Sun was inspired by her family’s battle againstracial segregation in Chicago. In 1938, her father bought a house in the Washington Park Subdivision of South side of Chicago violating a restrictive covenant. The efforts to force

Hansberry’s out culminated U.S. Supreme Court’s 1940 decision. She attended University of Wisconsin-Madison and left in 1950 to pursue her career in New York city. In 1951, she joinedthe black newspaper  Freedom.  A Raisin in the Sun was written at this time and completed in1957. She later joined The daughters of Blitis and contributed to their magazine, The ladder ,which addressed feminism and homophobia. In 1959, her play debuted becoming the first play

written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. While many of her other writings were published in her lifetime, the only one of other play given a contemporary

 production was The sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window that run for 101 performances onBroadway and closed the night she died. After a battle with pancreatic cancer she died onJanuary 12, 1965, aged 34. Publisher: Random HouseSetting in time: Between 1945-1959Setting in Place: The South side of Chicago

Division of the play The play has three acts:

Act I

Scene I Friday morning.Scene II The following morning.

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Act II

Scene I  Later, the same day.

Scene II Friday night, a few weeks later.

Scene III Moving day, one week later.

Act III  An hour later. 

Stage directions: Most of the family doesn’t speak using correct grammar, which reflects working classroots. Beneatha’s language is different from the rest of the family and marks her formaleducation. Walter Younger Jr has a passionate reaction about the American dream instead hiswife that all the time says that Mama should use the money to travel. Mama wants help her children; she is a religious woman too. Travis is awareness about what happens in home.

Presentation of CharactersMrs. Lena Younger (Mama) - Matriarch of the family. She has strong values and ideas abouthow to run her family; these sometimes conflict with those of her grown children.Walter Lee (Brother) - Mrs. Younger’s eldest child. He wants to start his own liquor business,against his family’s wishes. 0Beneatha - Walter Lee’s younger sister. She plans to go to medical school after college and

has ideals many people find difficult to understand.Ruth Younge - Walter Lee’s wife, who wants a tranquil home, but who experiences difficultyin communicating with her husband. Pregnant, she is considering having an abortion.Travis Younger - Walter and Ruth’s son. Both his parents want him to aim for a life with moreadvantages than they have been able to provide.Joseph Asagai - One of Beneatha’s gentleman friends; a fellow student at her school who is

originally from Africa. In the midst of crisis, he shows Beneatha an unexpected side of his personality.George Murchison - another friend of Beneatha’s. Because he is rich, the family urgesBeneatha to marry him, but she is not so sure this is what she wants.Karl Lindner - A white man representing a new-neighbor committee, who wants to make a

humiliating “deal” with the Younger family. Bobo - One of the men Walter wants to start a liquor business with; he delivers some shockingnews to the family.Mrs. Johnson - Nosy neighbor of the Youngers, who cannot help hinting that there might bedire consequences if the family moves to the new neighborhood.Walter Younger Senior - Deceased husband of Mrs. Younger. How the money from hisinsurance policy will be used is a source of conflict for the Younger family.

References:

-  BUCHANAN, Paul D. (2009), The American Women’s right movement: a

chronology of events and of opportunities from 1600 to 2008, Branden Books.

-  CARTER, Stephen R., “Commitment Amid Complexity: Lorraine Hansberry’s life

in Action”, MELUS (The Society for the study of the multi-ethnic literature of theUnited States), Vol. 7 Issue 3. At. 39, 1980. -  www.glbtq.com / literature/Hansberry_l.html. 06/25/2013 

-  www.shmoop.com/a-raisin-in-the-sun/characterization.html 06/26/2013