05/04. Wed. Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun (1583-1645).
Brief Notes on A Raisin in the Sun
The realism in this play is put in the service of elucidating the specifics of being African-American in Southside Chicago in the time period Hansberry is dealing with. It’s based on her own family’s experiences, as you may know – Hansberry v. Lee was a case that went to the Supreme Court and had to do with Mr. Hansberry’s desire to contest a restrictive racial covenant keeping him from buying property in a Chicago neighborhood. He won the suit.
What happens to a dream deferred? The dream, for this family, is in various states of deferral – Walter Lee is impatient and bold, Beneatha has dreams of becoming a doctor, Lena (Mama) at first can’t quite relate to the younger generation, and Ruth, Walter’s wife, is disappointed because she thinks nothing will ever change from her current domestic life and its chores.
What are the characters’ respective dreams? To what extent are any of them fulfilled? I’d say that the one fulfilled is the purchase of a home – that’s something Lena and the departed Mr. Younger always wanted to do, but never could. Now she has accomplished it. But the home by itself isn’t the fulfillment – the home must be lived in, and that’s the direction in which the family’s headed at the play’s end.
The frustrated dignity of old ways and ideas meets up with the boldness and anxiety of new ways and ideas, which plays out in the generational cross-talk of Mama and her kids. What are the ideas? Well, religion, the status of modern women, and race relations as well as a definition of what it means to be “black.” The context goes beyond America – it spreads out to Kenya, where Kenyatta and others were struggling for independence from Great Britain, which eventually happened late in 1963. Nigeria would become independent in 1960. The point is that there is a broad struggle for self-determination going on in the world against colonial powers like GB, and the younger characters are very well aware of that fight, see themselves in light of it. It increases their frustration with the domestic situation in America, and fuels their dreams of branching out, receiving full recognition. Notice Beneatha on assimilationism – to what extent should people of African descent in America want to “fit in,” and to what extent should they see themselves in something more like separatist or independent terms? That argument is already going on in the late 1950s and indeed you can trace it back to Marcus Garvey and beyond, in the 1920s. Liberia had been established way back in 1822, by former slaves. But I think you can see the mixed attitudes about that whole issue in this play. In general, the play keeps bringing up how the past and its ideas is at play in the present, but the transmission of those ideas is anything but perfect or clear, sometimes.
In their way, they are living out the strategies set forth by DuBois – Beneatha’s desire to join the “talented tenth” is pretty clear, while Walter thinks himself a practical businessman, which he really isn’t since he gets swindled from the outset.
The infusion of cash opens up new possibilities for everyone – money is vital in that sense; it provides distance from the crowd.
