EHS American Lit: 2011

Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" is a compelling drama, incorporating relevant racial issues of the time period into the text as well as tensions within the family. Hansberry grew up in the 1930's amongst racial discrimination and segregation in Chicago. Her background and life play into the plot of the play in that racial discrimination and segregation impact the Younger family. The play is the story of a black family, the Youngers, who work hard at what they do and house 3 generations in a run down apartment complex. After the death of Mr. Younger, the family has inherited 10,000 dollars in insurance money. The newly acquired money sparks conflict amongst the family members over how the money should be spent. It is eventually spent on a new house for the family. The remaining money is unknowingly spent by Walter on his dream investment in a liquor store, but is stolen by an untrustworthy friend. The play provides a wide spectrum of characters, including mama, Walter, Beneatha, Ruth, and Tyler Younger. A main issue in the play is racial segregation housing in Chicago. When the Youngers controversially buy their house in a white neighborhood, the white neighbors become aggravated and try to pay them to move away. As noted by the title, the play gets its name from Langston Hugh's poem, A Dream Deffered. This comes from the many dreams pursued by characters in the play and what happens to these dreams. I liked how the plot in this play developed and seemed to swing between good scenarios and bad scenarios constantly, keeping readers on edge. Also, it was a good depiction of the conflicts going on at the time. This play could come to interest a wide range of people. I would recommend it to those interested in the racial conflicts of the 1900's.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A Raisin In The Sun

The play “A Raisin In the Sun” was a play that dealt a great deal with the amount of tension a family contains, as well as many racial issues that people were dealing with during the time period in which the play was written. The play was set in Chicago during the 1960s and shows the real life of the Younger family. The family has a very challenging life, especially with the lack of money the family has. In the book each character that is involved has a very specific dream of intention on how they want to spend their life.

I really enjoyed that, how each person in the play is their own person. This leads to everyone in the family having a different opinion on how to spend the checks they receive in the mail because of the death of Walter Senior.

I also became very intrigued in the book because you got to see how Walter changes during the play. He is constantly changing from the beginning of Act I, all the way until the end of the play. Walter starts off very self centered, only caring about himself. However, as the book progresses and events play out, he becomes a very unselfish person.

One thing I didn’t like in the play was the fact that they only had one person who was white. The one person was suppose to represent the entire community of white people, I found that not as pleasing because I think that they could have had a few more characters with slightly varying opinions.

Overall, I thought the Play was a great demonstration of the issues and conflicts that black families had to encounter during the 1960s.

A Raisin in the Sun: Molly Bank's Glog

http://mollyb12029.glogster.com/false-232/

Monday, April 4, 2011

Raisin in the Sun Project: Poet of the Week

https://docs.google.com/a/apps.edina.k12.mn.us/document/d/1Idthhmg8t-_N1Lj_fMHGdmrykQZhlNG_oVy_5OYjtck/edit?hl=en#

A Raisin in the Sun Literary Review

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-XASyp8khiz7n-Tv7mhMrg8eEeJeNPETGq7kwmlX8pk/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMGTp8oO

Paul Buley's Glog

Raisin in the Sun alternate ending

https://docs.google.com/a/apps.edina.k12.mn.us/document/d/1CNH9iQANwHPXc-qwUHtJET4v5NUD7b_9WwLEa6skNP4/edit?pli=1&hl=en#

A Raisin in The Sun Prezi

I made a prezi about the litterary criticism that A Raisin in The Sun, as a Broadway show, recieved.

A Raisin in The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry on Prezi

Sara McNamara Voicethread Literary Review

http://voicethread.com/share/1911450/
Tell me if it does not let you see it.

Raisin in the Sun Literary Review

raisin in the sun glogster

http://ashleerenee.glogster.com/raisin-in-the-sun-ashleebaca/

Griffin Chin's Glog on A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin In the Sun EMPRESSR

Johnny's and Flip's Glog on Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun and Racism -Jamie Nichols

The A Raisin in the Sun is a play that show a lot of racism in the 20th century and this Glog shows how the play has some of it. http://jamien12486.glogster.com/glog-6722/

Literary Review

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was a play based on Langston Hughes poem A Dream Differed, about an impoverished colored family living in Chicago during the 1950’s that receives a check of insurance money because of their grandfather’s death. It is then one large debate between Walter, his wife Ruth, his mother and his daughter Bennetha about what to do with the large sum of money they just collected. Walter is ambitious with his dream for using the money; he wants to invest it into a new liquor store that is a high risk high reward situation. The other three women are strongly against that idea, his mother and Bennetha want to use it to pay for Bennetha’s medical school expenses and Ruth would like to save it and live a better life where they are now. Amidst the chaos the mother (Lena) goes out an buys a home for all of them to live in, because all of them plus Walter’s son Travis and another baby that is on the way are all living in one very small apartment building. But the house is in an all white neighborhood and could be potentially dangerous for them to live in. The white neighbors offer to buy their house because they don’t want any colored people living near them. At first the family refuses but then Walter call them up because he wants to get the money. But when he arrives Walter makes a large speech and doesn’t take it he flat out refuses him and keeps the house for the family to own. This was completely against his ideas previously but it saves the families sanity. Overall I think this play wasn’t terrible but I am not raving over it, the conflict between Walter and his family just seemed to keep going and going with no end in sight. But I did like the ending how he turned around. I think you would like this play if you are someone who would enjoy something with family struggles but then a fairy tale ending.

A Raisin in the Sun Review Ben Dahlberg

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, is set in Harlem and explores the concept or them of a “dream deferred,” referring to the unsuccessfulness of one’s plans to become wealthy due to the overall well being of the whole family. It explores this conflict in a hard-working black family living in Harlem in 1959, and their struggles in the midst of racially segregated housing in this once corrupt city.

Hansberry did, after all go through similar struggles. As a child, her family was heavily involved in legal battles fighting this topic of segregation with respect to housing in Chicago. However, she eventually pursued a writing career in New York City and overcame these childhood struggles, and was a famous playwright, basing many plays off of the topic of segregation.

As for the play, it is a twist of many characters that all have something different to offer, adding to the completeness of the family. Walter plays the role of the selfish, yet determined entrepreneurial figure, convincing the rest of his disagreeing family that his plan for an liquor store will work. On the other hand, Mama is a motherly figure, her main concern being the whole family. Walter’s wife, Ruth takes on a similar role to Mama in that she is concerned heavily with her relationship to Walter as well as their son, Travis who remains somewhat neutral to the situation. Beneatha, in a way plays a less important role in keeping the play somewhat romantic, with her “boy troubles,” including her fluctuating opinions on the African cultural figure of Asagai.

All throughout the play, these characters react to each other to create a family that may seem far apart at times, but ultimately stays together with the overall support for each other. Aside from this, white characters play the role of the “bearer of bad news,” in this case giving this hopeful family reason to believe that they are not wanted.

The use of Ebonics in the play contributes to the style in that it works to authenticate the language and really illustrate the language of this family, and adds to character development. For example, when Walter complains about his eggs, his use of Ebonics in his language adds to his overall unwillingness to put up with whoever disagrees or disturbs him.

This play is sometimes at a loss for happiness, but is ultimately satisfying, showing that a family that goes through so much adversity can ultimately overcome it only through the overall cooperation of everyone. The recommended audience would be anybody who enjoys drama and going though hardship, but is not only limited to that.

Travis's Story

TRAVIS’S STORY It is amazing how much the color of my skin affects me. I am fifteen years old and I have been reminded constantly of the effects of my skin color. When I was a little boy, I lived in a very small apartment with my mother, father, grandma, and aunt. It probably sounds terrible to you, but I didn’t mind it much. I liked how close we all were and how my family seemed larger. I slept in the main room of our home and had to wake up quite early each morning in order to get any time in the bathroom. The entire floor of the apartment shared one bathroom. My typical morning began with my mother’s voice and the rush of early morning light surrounding me and lifting me from my dreams. My mother is an amazing woman, no matter how much I dragged my feet or refused to open my eyes, she never lost her temper. Once I would finally get up I would have to speed to that bathroom. I never understood how a hot water tank could run out of water in less than five minutes, but that’s what I was used to. Upon my return from the bathroom, my father was usually anxiously waiting for his turn to brave the arctic water. Mother would always have breakfast prepared and ready for me. I loved her food, it was always hot and somehow she always knew what I wanted to eat. On any normal day my father would return to the tiny apartment somewhat more agitated than before. Although it never made sense to me at the time, money was always an issue in our family. When I would ask for some money to get a ride to school my mother would almost always say that it was much better for me to walk. I mean I understood that we did not have much, but then why couldn’t I work? I would suggest that I go and help carry out groceries to earn a little extra money, but my offer was always rejected. My grandma mentioned something about morals and that money wasn’t everything. Honestly though, money was almost everything. If we would have had more money we could have had more food and a better place to live. Our needs would have easily been met with a little extra cash. Anyway, other than the slight lack of money there was only one thing that I did not enjoy about my little life. To explain this you need to think of a time when you wished your parents would just leave you alone and stop telling you what to do all of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but let’s be honest, we have all been there. Now imagine that times four! Since we were all so close, everyone thought it was their job to parent me! It wasn’t till one day at my friend’s house did I really start to realize the difference between me and other kids my age. It was a sunny day in August when I was at my friend Billy’s house. We wanted to ask his parents if he we could take our bikes out to a pond just outside the town. I patiently waited, expecting for the decision to be made after a lengthy discussion of all the possibly out comes, pros and cons, ways to get there and all the ways we could get injured. The talk of injury would then of course lead to a story of how grandma killed a chicken that one time in who knows where and somehow that would lead to a life lesson. Before I knew it the tea was already hot for the afternoon and the chat that would follow. Meanwhile little me, who has been sitting here on the verge of tears all this time contemplating whether or not they would even notice if I just left. But no, his mother just replied “oh that’s fine dear!” Are you kidding? Oh she’s joking right! That’s not her real answer! No, that’s not possible… is it? Hold on, am I still breathing? Oh that’s fine dear?! What has happened to this planet and what did I ever do to make god hate me? Why couldn’t I ever get a simple answer such as this? I didn’t even care about biking any more. It had felt like someone shattered the world I lived in! I went straight home with the full intent of releasing a full blown court case on my family and demanding that they all resign from whatever positions of authority they held in my life. I was almost to the door when a strange looking man with a weird looking mustache hurried past me with a disgusted look on his face. At first I thought he was making the face at me, but then I heard some of my friends laughing and screaming about some rat that this guy had apparently tripped over. My mind completely lost track of my new outlook on my family and I ran to see the rat. This was no ordinary rat! It was huge! I spent close to an hour chasing that thing around our mostly brown front yard. I was having a lot of fun when I heard someone from upstairs in the apartment call my name. I ran up to find that mustache man in my apartment. My entire family was standing around our kitchen table with the man. Grandma called me over and told me to stand by my father. I was confused; I didn’t know what was going on, something about money, morals and keeping a neighborhood nice. I got lost in all of the grown up talk until finally my father explained to me that we would be moving to a much bigger and better house in the country. A shock ran through me and I didn’t know what to do! I would have my own room. I would have my own space. Our family would have our very own bathroom and would never have to share with other families again.