lorraine hansberry presentation by: mrs. woit. early life born in chicago may 1930 her parents were...
TRANSCRIPT
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Lorraine Hansberry
Presentation by: Mrs. Woit
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Early Life
• Born in Chicago May 1930
• Her parents were well educated and successful
• She lived in Chicago’s Southside in a black neighborhood
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During this era…
• Segregation was still legal and widely spread through the south
• Northern states had no official policy, but most were generally segregated
• Chicago was strictly divided among black and white neighborhoods
• Hansberry’s family was one of the first to move into a white neighborhood
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On a “Raisin in the Sun”
• Recognizably autobiographical
• Realistic portrait of African American life
• Opened as a play in 1959
• It was met with great praise from black and white audiences
• Won several awards
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The 1950’s
• An age of complacency and conformism
• Symbolized the growth of suburbs and commercial culture
• The ideas of “the happy housewife and blacks content with their inferior status”
• This resulted in an upswell of public resentment which led to the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960’s
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Can anyone define the American Dream????
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In her play Hansberry explored…
• Poverty
• Discrimination
• African American racial identity
• the oppressive white community of 1950
• Feminism
• Abortion
• DREAMS (VERY IMPORTANT)
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Dreams
• Dreams are CRUCIAL.• They motivate and drive the
main characters• They function in positive ways by
lifting their minds from tough work and life
• And in negative ways..by creating more dissatisfaction
• Most of this is due to emphasis on materialistic goals rather than on pride and happiness
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A note on the title “Raisin in the Sun”
• Taken from a 1951 poem by Langston Hughes “Harlem”
• Written after the Great Depression CRUSHED the Harlem Renaissance and devastated black communities
• The poem captures the tension between the need for black expression and America’s oppression of its black community
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“Harlem”
• What happens to a dream deferred? •
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?
•Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
•Or does it explode?
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Thoughts….
• Hughes asked whether a “dream deferred” withers up like a raisin in the sun? These thoughts as well as Hansberry’s confront the racist and dehumanizing attitude prevalent in the American society
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Her end…
• Sadly, Hansberry died at the young age of 34 of a courageous battle with cancer. Yet, her fight for equality lives on through the power of her words in “A Raisin in the Sun”