1. Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, Drama, and Struggle

2. Hansberry May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965 African American playwright
Also an author of political speeches, letters, and essays

3. Early Life
Youngest of four children of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie Louise Perry
She grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

4. Controversial Move
The family then moved into an all-white neighborhood, where they faced racial
discrimination
Segregation in
Chicago was
not forced;
but racial
tensions naturally
divided the city

5. Supreme Court case of Hansberry versus Lee
Hansberry's father engaged in a legal battle against a racially restrictive covenant that attempted to prohibit African-American families from buying homes in the area.
Though victors in the Supreme Court, Hansberry's family was subjected to what Hansberry would later describe as a "hellishly hostile white neighborhood."
This experience later inspired her to write her most famous work, A Raisin in the Sun.

6. Later Hansberry
Finding college to be uninspiring, Hansberry left in 1950 to pursue her career as a writer in New York City.
She worked on the staff of a Black newspaper called Freedom. It was at this time she wrote A Raisin in the Sun.

7. Basics of the Play
The story is based upon her family's own experiences growing up in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood.
A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director (Lloyd Richards) on Broadway

8. Importance of the Play
A Raisin in the Sun can be considered a turning point in American art and drama because it addresses so many issues important during the 1950s in the United States
Hansberry creates in the Younger family one of the first honest depictions of a black family on an American stage

9. Importance of Play, cont.
She uses black vernacular throughout the play
Broaches
important issues
and conflicts,
such as poverty,
discrimination,
and the
construction of
African-American
racial identity

10. Themes to Look For Dreams Pride Money Family Women’s Rights
Racial Tensions and Discrimination
Assimilation
Cultural Heritage
Self-Identity and Self-Expression

11. LENA YOUNGER (Mama)
(“Mama”) -  Walter and Beneatha’s mother. The matriarch of the family, Mama is religious, moral, and maternal. She wants to use her husband’s insurance money as a down payment on a house with a backyard to fulfill her dream for her family to move up in the world.

12. Walter Lee Younger
The protagonist of the play. Walter is a dreamer. He wants to be rich and devises plans to acquire wealth with his friends, particularly Willy Harris. When the play opens, he wants to invest his father’s insurance money in a new liquor store venture. He spends the rest of the play endlessly preoccupied with discovering a quick solution to his family’s various problems.

13. BENEATHA YOUNGER (Bennie)
(“Bennie”) -  Mama’s daughter and Walter’s sister. Beneatha is an intellectual. Twenty years old, she attends college and is better educated than the rest of the Younger family. Some of her personal beliefs and views have distanced her from conservative Mama. She dreams of being a doctor and struggles to determine her identity as a well-educated black woman.

14. RUTH YOUNGER
Walter’s wife and Travis’s mother. Ruth takes care of the Younger's’ small apartment. Her marriage to Walter has problems, but she hopes to rekindle their love. She is about thirty, but her weariness makes her seem older. Constantly fighting poverty and domestic troubles, she continues to be an emotionally strong woman.

15. TRAVIS YOUNGER
Walter and Ruth’s sheltered young son. Travis earns some money by carrying grocery bags and likes to play outside with other neighborhood children, but he has no bedroom and sleeps on the living-room sofa.

16. Symbols
Definition: Some reoccurring image that stands for an idea beyond itself
Be out on the lookout for symbols throughout the play!

17. Big Questions
To what extent do our dreams define who were are? When is it OK or right to “defer” our dreams?
How and where did racism occur after slavery and segregation? Where does it exist today?
What about sexism?
What does one need in order to find self-identity? To “know thyself?”