Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin In The Sun - Mama as the...

Mama as the Ideal Mother in A Raisin in the Sun W. S. Ross once said â€Å"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.† As simple as this quip may sound, its complex implications are amplified through the life of every person born since the beginning of humanity. What attribute makes a mother such an extraordinary influence over her young? One such attribute is the ability to nurture. Beyond the normal challenges of cooking, cleaning, schooling, singing, feeding, and changing is the motivation by which such sacrifices are made possible. One cannot raise a child without mutual respect. Emotion and anxiety must drive her instincts. Her ability to foster is only heightened by minute personal imperfections and†¦show more content†¦Lack of mutual respect. Lena realizes she is not encouraging the respect her son requires to lead his family; thus giving him the opportunity he needs by trusting him with some of the money from the settlement. This action effects him greatly and completely changes the m ood of the family atmosphere. Respect is a mutual relationship – a two-way street. A mother longs to feel respect from her children especially in her later years. Any hint to a lack of respect becomes, in her mind, a negative mark against her mothering skills. In the same play Beneatha, Lena’s daughter, is searching for her true beliefs and identity (1745). Mama Lena tells Beneatha that she is to respect the religious beliefs while she is living at home. Beneatha respects her mother but repels against the idea of God (1745). Along with mutual respect, emotion and anxiety play a significant role of nurture in motherhood. The two control her inner conscience which in turn leads her maternal instincts. A mother knows (has a feeling) when her child is ill when he/she is away at school. She senses the total devastation in her son after losing his first little league baseball game. In The Red Hat by Rachel Hadas a mother senses the boy’s need to grow up (line 14), but is uneasy with the thought to let him walk to school alone(line 10). So she and her husband follow their son to school. Strange feelings of emptiness and flimsiness capture herShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry1158 Words   |  5 Pages Welcome to Windham High School’s very own theater production of the incredible play A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry. To further understand the play please read the text below about the background of Hansberry’s life, living conditions in the era that the play took place, and reviews written about the play. Lorraine Hansberry was a playwright and a writer. She was born in Chicago May 19, 1930 in Chicago, and she grew up in the Woodlawn neighborhood in the South side of ChicagoRead More Social Conflict and Rebellion in Lorraine Hansberrys A Raisin in the Sun982 Words   |  4 Pages  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lorraine Hansberrys play, A Raisin in the Sun, relates the story of a working-class African-American family with dreams. They are willing to rebel against the position that society has forced on them because of their race and class in order to fulfill their dreams. Walter Younger is a chauffeur who can find no peace with that part of society which seems to permit him and no entry into that which has willfully excluded him (Willie Loman 23). He wants to rise into wealth and live as his employerRead MoreRacism And Double Discrimination By Lorraine Hansberry1969 Words   |  8 PagesProfessor M. Jones July 7, 2016 Racism and Double discrimination One of the many sad things about being an African American woman is that she suffers not just one but double racism as a black and as a woman. Lorraine Hansberry in 1959 wrote a play, Raisin in the Sun, focusing on an African American Family living in the mid 20th century, emphasizing how terrible it is to live as a woman and as black in the United states. It is a play that symbolizes the American society in the 20th centuryRead MoreMale Vs Female : Playwrights Of The 1950 S2361 Words   |  10 PagesPlaywrights of the 1950’s Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to pen a Broadway play. In her writings, she wrote male characters, many of whom were male protagonists. Being the feminist that she was, many people saw Hansberry’s depiction of Black men in one of two ways; either as an unhappy retreat from her feminist concerns or as a negative representation of Black manhood. Throughout her career, in works such as â€Å"The Village Voice† and â€Å"Les Blancs† Hansberry’s wrote other male charactersRead MoreThemes Of The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun709 Words   |  3 Pages‘A Raisin in the Sun’ is a story that focuses on an African American family in the late 1940’s that’s struggles through poverty and racism to find the American Dream. A life that should be better, fuller and richer for everyone with countless opportunities to each individual’s ability and achievement. A vision that appears to be too far to fully grasp, the Youn ger family struggles through life with the idea of the American Dream but come to terms that it means something a little bit different toRead MoreLorraine Hansberry And Alice Walker1970 Words   |  8 Pagesinherently pushes against the status quo. These two vastly different lifestyles are represented through the strategic character development and intricate symbolism by the authors, Lorraine Hansberry and Alice Walker in the nineteen-fifties play A Raisin In The Sun and the short story â€Å"Everyday Use†, respectively. Hansberry’s play follows the day-to-day life of the Younger family, which contains three generations of five people sharing an apartment with another family in South Side Chicago. The mainRead MoreLorraine Hansberry s A Raisin And The Sun, There Is A Poem By Langston Hughes1034 Words   |  5 PagesThe epigraph to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, there is a poem by Langston Hughes titled: â€Å"What happens to a dream deferred?† I believe the reason why Hansberry chose this particular poem as the epigraph to her play to be a form of foreshadowing and metaphor for the Younger family. In Hughes’s poem, there are four potential outcomes for when a raisin is left in the sun. It could fester like a sore and then run. A could smell like rotten meat. It could crust and sugar over. Or does it explodeRead MoreThe American Dream And The Black American Reality908 Words   |  4 Pages Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun encompasses all the ideals of the American Dream through her characters: Walter, who embodies the quest for an opportunity for prosperity, Beneatha who wants the freedom to be herself and embrace her African heritage, and Lena (Mama) who buys a home in a white neighborhood pushing the boundaries of social mobility during that time. The Youngers are in a state of poverty, because of this as suggested by Lloyd Brown â€Å"their deprivations expose the gap betweenRead MoreAmerican Dream in a Raisin in the Sun4319 Words   |  18 Pagesâ€Å"Harlem† captures the tension between the need for black expression and the impossibility of that expression because of American society’s oppression of its black population. In the poem, Hughes asks whether a â€Å"dream deferred† withers up â€Å"like a raisin in the sun.† His lines confront the racist, dehumanizing attitude prevalent in American society before the civil rights movement of the 1960s that black desires and ambitions were, at best, unimportant and should be ignored, and at worst, should be forciblyRead MoreCulture And Identity Of The Sun By Lorraine Hasberry, Everyday Use By Alice Walker And Etheridge Knight s1930 Words   |  8 PagesCulture and Identity in the literary works, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hasberry, Everyday Use by Alice Walker and Etheridge Knight’s A Poem for Myself, several outside forces can be found shaping the identity of the respective characte rs. The most recurrent theme found among the aforementioned works was the impact racial divide made on their identity and how they have either evolved or failed to evolve as a result. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun, explores the impact ones’ race has on the