510 Hansberry, Lorraine
runs through her family. Though she and her late
husband, Big Walter, had to flee southern violence
and racism, she still manages to care for her children
and grandson. The plant also symbolizes the dream
she has to own a home. She wants to plant her fam-
ily in richer soil in order to give them, especially
Travis, the opportunities that she never had.
Lena becomes upset because she thinks that her
children, particularly Walter, have lost the family
values that she and her husband tried to give them.
She doesn’t want the insurance money to tear the
family apart, and Ruth’s desire for an abortion rep-
resents, to her, the destruction of the family.
After Walter loses the money, Beneatha tells
her mother that he is no longer her brother. Lena
tells her that she was taught to love her brother and
that she should mourn for him. This speech makes
the play end on a complicated note. Walter, in tell-
ing Karl Lindner that he and his family will move
into their new house, had been allowed to be the
patriarch. However, the fact remains that he has lost
Beneatha’s tuition money, a move that demonstrates
his naïveté and self-centeredness. We are not sure
whether Walter has truly understood the gender
relations within his family. In addition, the family’s
breaking of the color line and moving to Clybourne
Park poses a whole new set of challenges. However,
Hansberry portrays a family that has its internal
problems, but still strives and works together.
Courtney Marshall
race in A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun lies at the intersection of the
integrationist Civil Rights movement of the 1950s
and the emergent hostility of the Black Power
movement of the 1960s. As such, it presents a
complicated view of American race relations and
a relatively new exploration of black culture. In the
play, the Younger family decides to move from its
run-down Chicago tenement into a home in an all-
white neighborhood, Clybourne Park. The govern-
ing body of the Youngers’ new neighborhood, the
Clybourne Park Improvement Association, sends
Karl Lindner to persuade them not to move into the
neighborhood. Lindner says that the whites are not
racist, but that everyone gets along better when they
are segregated. He questions the family’s insistence
on moving into a place where they are not wanted.
Though he tries to bribe the family in order to
keep them out, Walter tells him that they will move
because his father would want them to. The speech’s
central claim is that black Americans should have
right to enjoy the American dream just like
white Americans. Mr. Lindner and the people he
represents can see only the color of the Younger
family’s skin, and Walter wants him to see them
as just another family. He holds his son Travis and
tells Lindner that he makes the sixth generation of
the Younger family in America. Walter asserts their
right to the American dream by portraying them as
contributors, not strangers in the country.
In addition, the play explores issues of blackness,
namely the relationships between black Americans
and black Africans. The only picture of Africa that
Lena gets is the one she receives from Christian
missionaries. Her daughter, Beneatha, has a deeper
appreciation for the continent. Beneatha is torn
between two men, George Murchison, the son of a
wealthy businessman, and Joseph Asagai, a Nigerian
student. Her relationship with these two men sym-
bolizes her struggle to understand her identity as
an African-American woman. Beneatha explores
her black identity through her hair. At the beginning
of the play, Beneatha has chemically straightened
hair. After Joseph Asagai visits her home and ques-
tions her choice, she decides to cut her hair in order
to be more “black.” To her, wearing an Afro means
that she is in touch with her blackness and con-
nection to Africa. When Walter and Fred see her
Afro, they immediately tease her political views. The
play is not completely sympathetic to Beneatha’s
transformation. At the beginning of act 2, when
she wears the Nigerian clothes Asagai brought her,
she models them in a way that Hansberry describes
as being “more like Butterfly than any Nigerian.”
Beneatha mimics Oriental mannerisms and thinks
they are African. This demonstrates her ignorance
of Nigerian culture. To her, Africa is an idea, and
though she is more interested in African culture, she
is as ignorant as her mother on certain issues.
However, her final decision to practice medicine
in Africa promises a more informed view of the
continent.
Courtney Marshall