Clybourne Park Essay

Clybourne Park Symbols Bruce Norris the writer of the play Clybourne Park that is based off of the famous play A Raisin in the Sun. The play Clybourne Park, beings in 1959, this is at the end of the segregation period. It starts with a black family who wants to move into a white neighborhood but the head of the neighborhood is trying to keep them out. Then the play jumps fifty years into the future to 2009 where the house, which is owned by the black family, is now run down and the neighborhood has turned more into a black community. Norris embeds many meaningful symbols such as the community change, Kenneth, and the buried trunk in this play to convince readers that people believe racial issues have died but in reality are still alive today. The first symbol that is apparent in Norris’ play is how the community changes. At the start of the play, the entire neighborhood is white and they have an issue with black people trying to come into the community. The head of the community, Karl Linder is threatened that the neighborhood is going to go bad with the new black family, which will cause more black families to move in causing the property taxes to drop. To stop them from coming in, Karl tries to talk them out of it and explaining how communities work. Linder explains how white people live in nice neighborhoods and work for a living trying to maintain nice houses and in an all white neighborhood. He goes on to say that if black
Bellone 2 people start to move in, the property values will drop and white families will move out, finding a new place to live. With the explanation, Karl even tries to bribe the black family to go to another house or if he can refund them the money plus more if they don’t buy the house. It almost seems like a territorial war over this house. The black family fighting for what they rightly own but are only getting the rejection of the entire community on their blessing. This refers to today how many people of the same race