A Raisin in the Sun Analysis Essay Example

The play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play based on racial prejudice and how it affects a family and their dream. Following the Younger family and the challenges they go through when pursuing their dreams in a racially prejudiced time, the reader can see the perseverance as well as their viewpoint of life during this time. In A Raisin in the Sun the time period, the characters lived in made their life much harder and different than the modern era.

During this time redlining was alive and doing very well in the south side of Chicago. In source c we can see them talk about how redlining worked. Essentially banks would lend loans to white people but did not give loans to blacks. In source c they stated, “the reason behind this is for certain neighborhoods to stay rated higher, meaning it costs more money to live there, if blacks were to move there it would decrease the price.” If banks were to give loans to black people they would possibly be able to move into these areas which would make them go down in value. This doesn’t happen because the banks make it impossible to get loans. What this led to was a segregated city where one side or area was blacks and the other side was whites. During this time they didn’t even need to hide the fact about what they were doing; it was considered reasonable and fine. This is a raisin in the sun did happen but they had enough money from their Big Walter to buy the house but even then, Linder still tried to buy them out of the place for more money. During this time many black people could not get a house so when black people could they would try to buy them out and make them go somewhere else.

In this period of history, there were also black people in the community who were not in the mindset of moving up in the world and were envious of people who did. On page 100 of the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, we can see an example of this. When Ms. Johnson comes to their door she was acting really kind about them moving up in the world, but then she blurts, “You mean you ain’t read ‘bout them colored people that was bombed out their place out there?” When Ms.Johnson states that there is no concern for the Youngers she just wants to scare them and make them stay where they are. Ms.Johnson is more malicious and doesn’t want someone else to move up while she stays down where she is. Things like this during this time were common, a lot of people would be better and that would harm racial progress. In a more modern time since there is more equality, people would always be happy if someone they didn’t dislike moved up even without them. During the time in Chicago, there wasn’t much to help push black people higher in the world. Building on this in source d, it shows how redlining formed parts of Chicago and what it did to the communities. The city never cared for these lower-income black communities. So when people would be in these communities and they see someone move out they might think it is wrong or unsafe to leave it. They thought that the place was more of an enclosure for them to stay in. In the video, it even started “ Not all people could get along when living in these places. A lot of bad things happened, not much trust for others.” With the time in history, there were little people could do to get out of these communities, so when someone did leave the community it was a lot of bitter people who were mad about how they can’t get a better life like them.

In this time of history, the characters would have a much harder time than in a more modern time. During this time redlining was a big thing in Chicago separating the two races of people, as well as envious people that didn’t like people leaving the community and moving up in the world. These characters were not helped to move up in the world, they were mainly pushed down to try and stop them from moving up in the world. In the real world even recently there are still some examples of minorities getting pushed down, but much less than this time period where there was no help and the only force the other way.  In this time period of history, the characters in the play A Raisin in the Sun had their life negatively impacted by the time period but were able to persevere.