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A Raisin in the Sun
There is a power struggle going on between Mama and Walter that infuses the entire play with tension between the two. Walter is in his 30's and still lives with his mother along with his wife and...
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A Raisin in the Sun
I would say that the ending is a relatively happy one. Walter has stood up for his family, showing more commitment and veracity than he had previously shown at any other time in the work. At the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Mama Younger, the strong matriarch of the extended Younger family all living in one tiny, slum-like apartment, is a devout, if traditional, Christian woman. She rules the household, including...
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A Raisin in the Sun
See http://www.enotes.com/raisin-in-the-sun/q-and-a/what-connection-between-langston-hughes-harlem-322230
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A Raisin in the Sun
At first, Linder uses language to try to build a sense of commonality. He comes under the pretense of the "Welcoming Committee" when he is really there to do the opposite. But he believes in the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
To begin to write an essay, a scholar must first choose their topic and identify a thesis statement. In this case, the essay prompts us to consider the "most important" symbol in A Raisin in the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Joseph Asagai is a passionate African student who courts Beneatha and attempts to motivate her to connect with her African roots. Asagai is portrayed as a charming, intelligent man who has a...
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A Raisin in the Sun
It's always been Beneatha's dream to go to medical school and become a doctor. Unfortunately, her dreams of educational and professional achievement are shattered when her brother Walter loses...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lena Younger's first time meeting Beneatha's friend and love interest, Joseph Asagai, is ironic. Before meeting Joseph Asagai, Lena struggles to pronounce his name and mistakes Nigeria, where...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Mr. Lindner has come to pay a visit to Walter and his family to tell them that he wants to buy their newly-acquired property in order to stop them moving into their new neighborhood. Lindner...
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A Raisin in the Sun
To begin, A Raisin in the Sun is a play by American playwright Lorraine Hansberry from 1959. It was inspired by a poem by Langston Hughes, an American poet who often wrote, as Hansberry did, about...
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A Raisin in the Sun
During breakfast, Travis asks his mother for fifty cents and tells her that his teacher requires them to bring in money today. Ruth understands that her family cannot afford to waste fifty cents...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The primary theme of Langston Hughes's celebrated poem "Harlem" concerns the nature of deferred dreams regarding the plight of African Americans. The title of Hansberry's classic play is taken from...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Beneatha seems to be looking for a man who can give her a sense of security and self-worth. Both of these qualities have been notable in their absence from Beneatha's life since her brother Walter...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The earlier film version of A Raisin in the Sun (1961) was made at a time when Hollywood had only recently begun to allow realistic portrayals of African American characters, moving away from the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The character who changes the most is Walter Younger, Jr. One of the most important things about Walter’s transformation is that he is an adult whose views seem to have been set and, throughout...
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A Raisin in the Sun
At the end of the play, Mr. Lindner visits the Younger family's apartment, prepared to make a deal in order to buy Lena's home back. Initially, Walter Jr. plans on selling the home back to the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In act two, scene two, Walter Jr. remains depressed and intoxicated after learning that his dreams will never come to fruition. After Lena bought the home in Clybourne Park, Walter realized that...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lena Younger is a genuine, selfless woman who wants what is best for her family. Lena Younger is also extremely humble and could never imagine possessing ten thousand dollars. She dreams of using...
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A Raisin in the Sun
One of the features that makes Walter Younger a dynamic, round character is that he is constantly plagued by doubts about the correct path to take. Throughout the course of the play, Lorraine...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In literature, there is a fine line between saying a character is a "symbol" and recognizing that authors always use characters to express ideas and represent concepts that are part of a work's...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Shortly after George Murchison enters the Younger family’s apartment, he gets into a heated argument with Beneatha over their African heritage. Unlike Beneatha, George does not respect or revere...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lena, Ruth, and Beneatha are all portrayed as strong, determined African American women living in a cramped apartment in the South Side of Chicago. All three characters are outspoken individuals...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry’s play takes place in a specific historic period so the costumes and other design elements should fit with the period. The playwright offers little description of the clothes,...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, Walter Lee Younger Jr. grows into a more mature person during the course of the play. Walter Jr. lived in his father’s shadow while the older man was alive. With his...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Mrs. Johnson is the Younger family's nosy neighbor, who visits their apartment to gather more information about their upcoming move and to offer her opinion on their decision to purchase a house in...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Ruth Younger is a thirty-year-old housewife with a monotonous daily routine. Despite a strained relationship with Walter at the beginning of the play, Ruth works hard to keep her family together....
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A Raisin in the Sun
At the beginning of act two, scene one, Walter enters the apartment drunk while Beneatha is wearing the traditional African garments given to her by Joseph Asagai. As Beneatha performs and dances...
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A Raisin in the Sun
One of Walter Younger’s most appealing characteristics is that he is a dreamer. As the title suggests, his dream has long been deferred. He has faith in the American dream. His American dream is to...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The main theme of Lorraine Hansberry’s play is hinted at by the title, which is a line from a poem by Langston Hughes. The idea that deferring one’s dreams will lead either to those dreams’...
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A Raisin in the Sun
During a conversation between Beneatha and her mother, Lena mentions that her daughter will become a doctor, "God willing," and Beneatha responds by saying that God has nothing to do with it....
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A Raisin in the Sun
Because A Raisin in the Sun is a play, the primary literary element that Lorraine Hansberry uses to develop characterization is dialogue. Within each character’s lines, the author uses word choice...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In Lorraine Hansberry's celebrated play A Raisin in the Sun, Lena Younger is depicted as a proud, selfless woman whose primary concern is her family's well-being. In the play, Lena Younger receives...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The idea of deferring one’s dreams applies to almost all of the characters in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, so each writer’s choice of thesis will vary. Many readers consider Walter to be the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Walter Lee Younger is depicted as an extremely bitter man, who resents his position in life and desperately strives for his dream of establishing a liquor business. Walter is sick of being a...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry depicts numerous aspects of American society in the 1950s. The Youngers faces numerous challenges as an African American family of the times, and individual characters grapple...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In Lorraine Hansberry's classic play A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Younger is depicted as a desperate, ambitious man who plans on using his mother's insurance money to invest in a liquor business...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lena Younger is the head of the household and the oldest member of her family. Lena wants what is best for her family and embodies traditional views and beliefs. Despite her good intentions, Lena...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Overall, Lorraine Hansberry expresses an optimistic vision of late 1950’s US society, but she casts a harsh light on the negative aspects such as racism and dishonesty. The upbeat ending, in which...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, Walter Younger Jr. is an African American man in his thirties who works as a chauffeur. He wants a better life not only for himself but also for his family, which...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Beneatha Younger in A Raisin in the Sun plans to become a physician and is not particularly interested in marriage. She thereby defies the expectations of several male characters and her...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun takes its name from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem." The line refers to what happens to a person's dreams as they wait and wait for society to allow...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Initially, Lena possesses the power and authority in the Younger household. She is the oldest member of the family as well as the person who receives the ten-thousand-dollar insurance check. Since...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Walter Lee in A Raisin in the Sun and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables both start out without much in life and both aspire to attain much more. Walter wants his mother to give him the proceeds of the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Lena Younger is portrayed as a religious, morally upright woman who is selfless and desires what is best for her family. Following the death of her husband, Lena receives a ten thousand dollar...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Overall, it's clear that the Youngers don't have much of a spiritual connection with the land of their ancestors. Thoroughly Americanized—though still not accepted as equals in the deeply racist...
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A Raisin in the Sun
In the poem "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes, the speaker is addressing her son and explaining that life is hard but that he must not "set down on the steps" and give up. She talks about the...
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A Raisin in the Sun
Beneatha and Asagai are two minor characters in the play who provide a meaningful discussion around important topics such as assimilation and how to help others. Asagai is Beneatha’s African-born...
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A Raisin in the Sun
An effective compare-and-contrast character analysis essay will be based on two characters that have both strong similarities and strong differences. It may work well to write this type of essay...
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A Raisin in the Sun
The question of whether dreams should be tied more to who we are or what we want is complicated. In the play, Mama dreams of owning a home. She is able to realize her dream, but this opens doors to...
