English Written Task 2
How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
A Raisin in the Sun by: Lorraine Hansberry
Word Count: 1056
A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry primarily involves the story of a particular social group: a family of an African-American living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. The beginning of the play tells us that the Younger family is waiting for the $10000 insurance money that they will get from the death of Mamas’ husband; afterwards the story focuses on how the insurance money will be spent. From this main plot itself, we could tell that the play is about the struggle of the Younger family to gain acceptance from different areas of issues they are facing—economic status, ‘white’ neighborhood and their African identity, which might be the struggle of a large population of African-American in 1950s as well.
Lorraine Hansberry uses different stylistic and literary devices to portray the unfortunate economic condition of some of the African-American on that time. One example is how Hansberry showed the thematic scheme of economic struggle by describing the house of the Younger family, which seems to symbolize poverty.
Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years-and they are tired.1
The extract clearly tells the readers that they have been living in the house for a very long time while the family is getting bigger as well, making the house unaccommodating for all of them. This means that they have been stuck up in poverty since they started their life with that house. Whilst, it might also means that some African-American have been under poverty since they started living in the US. In the 1950s, the Civil Rights and Social Reform started to arise. African-American began fighting against racial segregation and discrimination because most probably “they are tired.”2 Hence, the social group
A Raisin in the Sun by: Lorraine Hansberry
Word Count: 1056
A Raisin in the Sun written by Lorraine Hansberry primarily involves the story of a particular social group: a family of an African-American living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. The beginning of the play tells us that the Younger family is waiting for the $10000 insurance money that they will get from the death of Mamas’ husband; afterwards the story focuses on how the insurance money will be spent. From this main plot itself, we could tell that the play is about the struggle of the Younger family to gain acceptance from different areas of issues they are facing—economic status, ‘white’ neighborhood and their African identity, which might be the struggle of a large population of African-American in 1950s as well.
Lorraine Hansberry uses different stylistic and literary devices to portray the unfortunate economic condition of some of the African-American on that time. One example is how Hansberry showed the thematic scheme of economic struggle by describing the house of the Younger family, which seems to symbolize poverty.
Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years-and they are tired.1
The extract clearly tells the readers that they have been living in the house for a very long time while the family is getting bigger as well, making the house unaccommodating for all of them. This means that they have been stuck up in poverty since they started their life with that house. Whilst, it might also means that some African-American have been under poverty since they started living in the US. In the 1950s, the Civil Rights and Social Reform started to arise. African-American began fighting against racial segregation and discrimination because most probably “they are tired.”2 Hence, the social group