A Raisin in the Sun

Wigdan Moharram

English 1B

Professor Maurice Jones

October 31, 2016

A Raisin in the Sun

“Well, I certainly was glad to hear from you people” (Hansberry 146).”What does that actually mean? What was “you people” intention, does it pin point that you are a certain type of people or a certain type of social class. Whereas, social awareness has evolved in today’s era, but living in the 1950’s and 1960’s differs by a long shot. The stress of living in a crowded apartment, the stress of working like a slave, the stress of trying to get rich, these are some of what many families can relate to. Social Class is what fuels this social structure of classes and creates conflict with race during the era of Ms. Hansberry’s play. Identifying Ms. Hansberry’s intention of using the setting in this play is to face racial differences, to allow the audience to realize life in the 50-60’s, and to combat the ideology of stereotypical people and their assertions.

The setting of residence for the play is in a dorm like building, with one bathroom for all the residents on that floor, and a first come first serve idea. While Travis exits the bathroom he screams at his father “Daddy, come on!” (Hansberry 28), Walter sprints to the bathroom before the next person beats him to the bathroom. The small apartment in which Travis sleeps on the couch, Ruth and Walter are in one room, and Lena is sharing a bedroom with Beneatha. The description of the residential setting would be compared to what Marxist would call “hegemony” an institutional residence. Hall  says that “this is a belief shared by many members of the proletariat, who have been taught to devalue themselves and may even believe that they deserve the conditions they live in” (Hall 77).  

Many people are living with this type of ideology that people will not overcome their given economical status.  But not in Lena and her family’s case, Lena has always wanted to leave this housing scenario. This move wasn’t for her and her garden but for her family a growing family that needed more than what they had in that apartment. Lena and her family were breaking that mold and that is what Ms. Hansberry’s idea. To break that ideology that we are what we are and this is our destiny. The racial differences in many families of color are forced to live in cramped residential buildings. Dividing the poor and the rich who live in single family homes as their families grow, this is what society as whole wants and intends to do. Ms. Hansberry made it a point to have this focus, focusing on a family of color to standout with a voice; a family does not let a social class define their status in life. But to challenge that status quo with doing what is best for them as a family. For Lena, Walter, and the rest was to have a house even if it is surrounded by white people. This type of racial division has impacted many families that era and playing out for others to see allowed Ms. Hansberry to impact people by the masses.

Living in the 1950-60’s and living colored in that era are two different platforms. Ms. Hansberry was able to convey these in bits throughout the play. People of color especially Blacks were forced to work in extreme conditions, for extremely low wages, segregation was in its prime, and equality was far in-between.  But this never discourages Lena from remembering her past to help teach her son a lesson or two.  Here Lena is reminding what his generations went through fought for to get this far in life even if they had nothing, “I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers— but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay’em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t it to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor” (Hansberry 143).  Although, Walter’s anxious attempt to make back the money he lost in the fake business venture.

This was life then, a time where society was segregated and it was still difficult for people of color to improve life.  What Lena did by referring to their past generations is what Hall would say raising important components that creates an intervention.  “A key role of critic is to elucidate textual and exttratextuak ideologies and thereby to further class awareness and positive social change” (Hall 81). Positive social intervention was created by Lena that led to Walter turning away the buy back from Mr. Linder. This is Ms. Hansberry’s idea in reflecting what families had to go through in the 50’s and 60’s. Families had to endure stereotypes of all kinds and during this plays era it was much more intensified.

Stereotype is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same”. People and  their assertions of one’s color has created this barrier between people, One thinking of the other in a negative way and thinking that ideology continues after several generations has came and went. But it has caused people of the same color to demoralize themselves, because they don’t happen to be rich and the opposite color. Walter criticizes his own employment that he is a chauffeur and nothing but a modern slave to the white man. This was low point in his life rock bottom, but realistically many of the families of color were poor and barely making ends meet. Ms. Hansberry has brought up a point in her play that many families go through every day. A scenario that people can relate to an d fill Walter shoes. Ms. Hansberry allowed this to develop in her play from the beginning of Scene 1 to the very last scene. Where Lena refers to her son as a man and he develops into that father figure for his son. He has done so by remembering his generations, what they went through, what they had to endure for him to be in that apartment and on the verge to moving into a house where it was only intended for whites to live. Ms. Hansberry provides the challenges stereotypes that are associated with her play in a couple of ways.  The first way is that she shows the Lena and her family as challenged by the issues of class and gender, as much as race.  Normally, the stereotype would state that race is the only dominant issue.  Hansberry presents a portrait of the family because she examines how different social conditions converge in order to define the family's identity.  Another way in which the family resists being stereotyped lies in their confronting issues and finding success from them.  Hansberry does not show a family that capitulates to the conditions around them or fragments in the face of challenge and adversity.  Walter was able to discover what his past generations true values and while there will be struggle; the ending indicates that the family will face it together.  This discredits the stereotype that shows a family of color breaking under pressure. They are a product of positive social change and Ms. Hansberry helped everyone live it through the stage.