Hansberry makes use of many literary components to convey this theme corresponding to symbolism, diction, imagery, and construction. Symbolism in the play consists of Mama’s plant, the cash Travis is given by Walter, and the new home. The plant symbolizes Mama’s household and the way she nurtures the plant simply as she nurtures the household. But additionally black individuals in normal at the moment and the way the plant struggles to outlive with restricted publicity to daylight simply as blacks of mid-19th Century America wrestle to outlive with restricted alternatives.
At the starting of the play, Travis asks his mom for 50 cents for a college exercise. After his mom says she doesn’t have this meager sum, Walter provides Travis a greenback, telling him to spend the additional on himself. The 50 cents represents the respectable wants cash should buy; the greenback represents the need for materials items past these wants. Cash is each a blessing and a curse, relying on how individuals use it (Act I, Scene 1, web page 28).
And the new home represents braveness, hope, and progress—braveness, as a result of the household is prepared to confront the prejudice it encounters in a white neighborhood; hope, as a result of they imagine the home might Help present a greater future for them; progress, as a result of—like the backyard Mama plans for the yard of the home—they’ll be capable to see their lives with new alternatives to achieve respectability and obtain emotional, ethical, and financial progress. The diction all through Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun performs an important function in the play.
Firstly, the phrases chosen to be stated by characters corresponding to Ruth, Walter, and Mama give vital details about their personalities and mind. For instance, when Mama says, “‘I don’t assume I by no means met no African earlier than,’”(Act I, Scene 2, web page 57). This line has extra to than meets the eye by including a double unfavourable in this line, Hansberry lets the reader know that Mama just isn’t the most educated particular person, probably coming from a background of poverty and few alternatives.
The state of affairs is comparable for the characters Ruth and Walter, each saying one thing that doesn’t match into appropriate grammar requirements a number of instances all through the play. The absence of such diction performs an vital function as nicely. On this case, Beneatha is offered as a extra clever, astute lady, as she is learning to turn into a health care provider, but additionally as a result of she doesn’t use grammar taboos like ‘ain’t. ‘ By utilizing completely different sorts of diction for various characters, Hansberry is ready to not directly current details about them.
Secondly, the diction of Mr. Lindner stood out to me whereas studying this. The way in which that Lindner danced round the topic of how the neighborhood didn’t need the Youngers as a result of they had been black provides to the sympathy for the Youngers in the manner that their enemies didn’t have the fortitude and respect to come back proper out and declare their intentions. By using varied diction all through the play, Hansberry was in a position to efficiently transmit her classification of individuals and their intentions.
A wide range of imagery is used all through the play. The start of the first act introduces us to a small scene the place readers are identified what’s going on with photographs and footage. The writer describes the Youthful lounge as a “snug and well-ordered room” that’s residence to many various individuals. The outline of the worn and weary carpet with its “miserable uniformity, elsewhere on its floor” permits readers to think about a home that has been cleaned many instances however lives on at a extremely previous state (Act I, Scene 1, web page 23).
Whereas all the pieces has been polished and washed many instances, the overuse of every merchandise exhibits the struggles the Youthful household has in not having the ability to purchase new issues and the way conservative they’re in utilizing them. Imagery can be used particularly in Act II Scene 1 of the play. Throughout this scene, Walter is drunk, however he joins Beneatha in singing and dancing people songs from Nigeria. Whereas they dance, readers are particularly captured by what they hear as Walter shouts out and screams many African phrases corresponding to “Ocomogosiay and Owimoweh. Additionally, when Walter leaps up the desk and carries an imaginary spear whereas performing like he’s the chief of his black brothers, we’re dropped at the previous of the African tradition. The imagery of Walter thumping his chest and declaring robust phrases corresponding to “I’m a lot warrior” provides us a way of what their ancestors’ lives had been like earlier than they moved to America (Act II, Scene 1, web page 76-80). The firmly structured plot of the play is developed in a really conventional method.
In the first scene, the main characters are launched, the setting and theme are established, and the battle is offered. All of the Youngers eagerly await the arrival of the $10,000 life insurance coverage verify. Walter, in explicit, goals about the cash, believing that he’ll be capable to use it to speculate in a liquor retailer together with his two mates. Many issues Help to unify the plot. There’s a solid of only a few characters, with one among the Youngers showing in each scene; Walter, the protagonist, is the important character and focus all through.
The play additionally has a unity of time and place. Just a few days move in the drama, and virtually all the motion takes place in the small, dingy residence of the Youngers, situated in the ghetto of South Chicago. The play is additional unified by the Themes of getting goals, discrimination, and delight, that are developed all through. One other unifying issue is the use of the symbolic potted plant, which stands for the struggling Youthful household and seems a number of instances in the play, together with the touching closing scene. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is about residing the “American Dream”.
Hansberry wrote her story in 1959. The “American Dream” that she describes and the one which at the moment exists are vastly completely different. In 1959, the dream was to work onerous and stay a snug life. American’s believed that you’d stay a superb life so long as you had your loved ones and had meals on the desk. At this time the “American Dream” is to have two automobiles, a glamorous home, a pool, a 40 hour every week job, and an considerable quantity of “stuff”. Works Cited Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun: A Drama in Three Acts. New York: Random Home, 1959. Print.
References:
Bernstein, Robin. “Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Vital Reception of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Trendy Drama 42.1 (1999): 16-27.
Wilkerson, Margaret B. “” A Raisin in the Sun”: Anniversary of an American Basic.” Theatre Journal 38.four (1986): 441-452.
Washington, J. Charles. “A Raisin in the Sun revisited.” Black American Literature Discussion board. Vol. 22. No. 1. St. Louis College, 1988.
Lipari, Lisbeth. ““Afraid of the written phrase”: white worry, black writing, and lorraine hansberry’s a raisin in the solar screenplay.” Quarterly journal of Speech 90.1 (2004): 81-102.
Gordon, Michelle. “Considerably like Conflict”: The Aesthetics of Segregation, Black Liberation, and” A Raisin in the Sun.” African American Evaluate 42.1 (2008): 121-133.
Gourdine, Amgeletta. “The Drama of Lynching in Two Blackwomen’s Drama, or Relating Grimke’s Rachel to Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Trendy Drama 41.four (1998): 533-545.
