A Raisin In The Sun: Univeral Tale Or Strictly For The Blacks?
...Tale or Strictly for the Blacks?
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a story about struggling to overcome. The play was meant to show how life was for African-Americans in the 1950s and it achieved that goal. Although A Raisin in the Sun was more than likely intended to reach African-Americans that’s not all it reached. With its universal themes of dreams, family, and work, this play reaches out to people of all races.
Dreams are a recurrent theme in A Raisin in the Sun. From Lena’s dream to give her family a better life to Walter Lee’s dream of being rich, the play is filled with dreams. With dreams like these floating around throughout the whole play, who can’t relate? Almost every mother wants to give her a child a better life than she had. As for being rich, I don’t know one person who didn’t want to be famous and rich or make something of themselves, which is all Walter Lee really wanted. While his intentions were good they could come off as selfish to the rest of the world and his family.
Family is another universal theme within Hansberry’s play. Even the character’s dreams pertain to the family. Even with all the disagreements and the arguing one can still catch a glimpse of the love the Younger’s have for each other. Even the closest knit families fight from time to time. They even all have screw- ups like Walter Lee, but what readers of this play can relate to the most is that no matter what goes on at the end of the day they still loved each other.
Everyone works to provide for their family and the Younger’s are no different. This is one thing even the rich and famous can relate to because they once had to go to a job that they hated also. Most people have had to get up to go to a job they hate in hopes of one day being able to do something they love. It has not only been blacks struggling...
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