 1930-1965
 Grew
up on Chicago’s south
side as the youngest of four
children
 Her father was a successful
business man and her family
was wealthy by the standards
of her neighborhood.
 Hansberry
was educated in
Chicago’s public schools and
showed an early talent for
both writing and drawing.
 She later attended the
University of Wisconsin and
the Art Institute of New York



From high school on into her later
life, Lorraine wrote plays and short
stories
It opened in 1959 and was an instant
success
r first piece of writing to receive
recognition was was “A Raisin in the
Sun”
Hansberry continued to write
plays after “A Raisin in the Sun”
 Her second Broadway play, “The
Sign in Sidney Bruster’s
Window”, opened just three
weeks before she died of cancer,
at the age of 34

 “To
Be Young Gifted, and
Black” a collection of letters,
journal entries, speeches, and
play excerpts, was published in
1969
 This was the culmination of a
very promising, but shortened,
career.
Opened on Broadway in 1959 to
instant success
 This play marked the beginning
of a vigor's black theater
movement.
 This became one of the most
vital forced in the modern
American theater.



African American families, such as
Lorraine Hansberry’s family, began
moving into white suburbs in order to
create more opportunities for the families
and to stress the importance of equality
and the end of segregation.
These families were not welcomed in
white communities and often suffered
unjust retaliation from their neighbors.
“A Raisin in the Sun” won the
New York Drama Critic’s Circle
Award.
 At 29, Lorraine Hansberry
became the youngest person and
the first African American
playwright ever to win this
award.

The 1950s, when “A Raisin in the
Sun” was produced, were a time
of overall peace and prosperity
in America.
 However, it was also a time of
developing racial tension as
African Americans began to
assert their right to equality.


The growing memberships in
organizations such as the
NAACP demonstrated the
unifying forces of African
Americans that eventually
allowed the Civil Rights
movement of the 1960s to take
place.
Themes in the drama

The Value and Purpose of Dreams:
 “A Raisin in the Sun” is essentially
about dreams, as the main characters
struggle to deal with the oppressive
circumstances that rule their lives.
 Every member of the Younger family
has separate, individual dream
 The
Value and purpose of
Dreams
 By the end of the play, they
learn that the dream of a
house is the most important
dream because it unites the
family


The Need to Fight Racial Discrimination
The play powerfully demonstrates that the way
to deal with discrimination is to stand up to it
and reassert one’s dignity in the face of it rather
than allow it to pass unchecked.



The Importance of Family
The Younger's struggle socially and
economically throughout the play but unite in
the end to realize their dream of buying a
house.
Mama strongly believes in the importance of
family, and she tries to teach this value to her
family as she struggles to keep them together
and functioning.


Throughout the events of the drama the family
members realize that they are still strong
individuals, but they are not individuals who
function as part of a family.
When they begin to put the family and they
family’s wishes before their own, they merge
their individual dreams with the family’s
overachieving dream.
ACT 1 NOTES
SYMBOLS:
“Eat Your Eggs”
Walter employs this phrase from early in the
drama to illustrate how women keep men from
achieving their goals-every time a man gets
excited about something, he claims, a women
tries to temper his enthusiasm by telling him to
eat his eggs.
 “Eat
Your Eggs”
 Being quiet and eating one’s
eggs represents an
acceptance of the adversity
that Walter and the rest of
the Younger's face in life.



“Eat your Eggs”
Walter believes that Ruth, who is
making his eggs, keeps him from
achieving his dream, and he argues
that she should be more supportive
of him.
The eggs she makes every day
symbolize her mechanical approach
to support him.
Act 2 notes

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Beneatha’s hair
When the play begins, Beneatha has
straitened hair.
Midway through the play, after Asagai
visits her and questions her hairsyle, she
cuts her Caucasian seeming hair.
Her new, radical afro represents her
embracing her heritiage.
Act 3 notes
 Dynamic
character changes
in some important way as a
result of a story’s action
 Static character stays the
same during the course of a
story



Mama’s plant
The most overt symbol in the play,
mama’s plant represents both Mama’s
care and her dream for her family.
In her first apperance onstage, she moves
directly toward the plant to take care of
it.
 Mama’s
plant
 Her care for her plant is
similar to her care for her
children, unconditional and
unending despite a less-thanperfect environment for
growth.
 Mama’s
plant
 The plant also symbolizes
her dream to won a house
and, more specifically, to
have a garden and a yard.
 With her plant, she practices
her gardening skills.
 Mama’s
plant
 Her success with the plant
helps her believe that she
would be successful as a
gardener.
 Her persistance and dedication
to the plant fosters her hope
that her dream may come true.