A Raisin in The Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Characters
WALTER YOUNGER: Father of Travis & Ruth’s husband.
RUTH YOUNGER: Wife of Walter Younger and Travis’s mother.
TRAVIS YOUNGER: Son of Walter and Ruth.
LENA YOUNGER (MAMA): Walter and Beneatha’s mother.
BENEATHA YOUNGER (BENNY): Walters’s sister and Mama’s only daughter.
GEORGE MURCHISON: Beneatha’s jilted suitor.
JOSEPH ASAGAI: Beneatha’s Nigerian suitor.
KARL LINDNER: The proposed buyer of the Younger’s house.
MRS. JOHNSON: Younger’s nosy neighbour.
WILLY HARRIS: Walter’s friend.
A Raisin in the sun is a Non-African play written by Lorraine Hansberry. The setting of the play is based on the effects of the Second World War which led to discrimination between the white Americans and their black counterpart.
The play was written in 1959 and the title “A Raisin in the Sun” was coined from the poem “Harlem “written by Langston Hughes.
Lorraine Hansberry, in explaining the difference in the lives of the whites and the blacks chronicles the lives of the Youngers who live in Chicago slums.
The Youngers live in wretchedness in a two-room apartment, five of them. Walter Younger, a Limousine driver is the head of the family and he is not capable of supplying the basic needs of the family.
Walter Younger just lost his father; hence the hope of the family is the $10,000 insurance claim to be collected on behalf of their dead father.
Mama’s plan on the money is to buy a more convenient house for the family in the White neighborhood because it is cheaper there.
Walter wishes to go into liquor business because it is lucrative but Mama objects to this. Beneath plans to spend her own to settle her fees as a medical student.
Mama hands over the remaining money ($6,500) to Walter after purchasing the house with the instruction that $3,000 should be given to Beneatha for her education.
Unfortunately, Walter is eventually swindled of the money; hence his dream of going into liquor business is not realizable and also denies Beneatha of her own share of the money.
The economic situation of the family is made worsen with this. Ruth that is pregnant is thinking of terminating the pregnancy not to add to the burdens of the family.
The neighborhood of Claybourne Park where the new house is located becomes hostile when they know that the Youngers will soon be members of the community.
They then send Karl Lindner to go and offer the Youngers some amounts of money in exchange for the house.
Mama rejects the offer but Walter sees it as another opportunity of improving the economic conditions of the family.
He later thought of the integrity of his family and eventually supports the wish of the family and the offer was rejected. The Youngers are to move into the house.
George Murchison is Beneatha’s suitor but sees nothing wrong in racial discrimination. Beneatha later jilts him for Joseph Asagai, a Nigerian who advises her to get her degree in medicine and come to Nigeria and enjoy with him.