Preview

Raisin In The Sun Feminism

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
824 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Raisin In The Sun Feminism
Raisin in the Sun reflects the author, Lorraine Hansberry; with the starring Younger family during the 1950s and 60s. Her life was riddled with controversy, from her upbringing to the different movements and clubs she participated in. Granting her the experience to reflect the conflict between blacks and whites. She merged the feminist movement, The Great Migration, and the redlining and covenants into her play with ease. Giving us the opportunity to reenact what it would have been like to live in that era.

After The Great Migration, competition for housing and Racism and prejudice was on the rise. Experienced by Mama, the head of the Younger family household. She had put a down-payment on a house in Clybourne Park, grabbing the neighborhood's
…show more content…
Feminism was a main character in the play. Especially since the play was written after World War II: a turning point for the feminist movement. Lorraine then added many examples of male chauvinism to give dynamic. Portrayed by the few men introduced throughout the play. I would first consider Walter Lee, he demanded Beneatha to be content being a maid. Not have aspirations to become a doctor. He mostly wanted the money for himself, to start his own job. To be the “man” in the family. In another scene, George, Beneatha's love interest, didn't want to carry on an intellectual conversation, he just wanted to make-out. George then became irritated, told her, “that all a woman needs is a body and not a brain." Now we look at the women's empowerment in the play. We have Mama, who is making all the hard decisions discerning the family's lives. Then, Ruth, Walter Lee's wife, having the strength to consider an illegal abortion. She had to think for the best of the family; could she feed one more mouth? In addition, Beneatha aiming for a degree as the doctor.

In conclusion, Raisin in the Sun is a play written with the feminist movement, The Great Migration, and the redlining and covenants, in mind. Only a few of the events touched on during the brief reenactment of the Younger family's dilemma. Lorraine Hansberry was able to take her experiences and surrounding contact to create a cohesive fictional historical

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The article by Marcia Faulk talks strongly about how the play depicted women in a controlling and demeaning way. Stalk brings up many good points. She mentions that the only women who are seen in the book or movie are either “mindless whores, or if a women is not totally mindless, she is a direct threat to male life”. This is true but the same thing can be said about the male roles as well. The only male characters you see in this book are mental patients, who are weak. One male, Billy Bibbet, could not even stand up to his mother even at the age of 30. Nurse Ratched had so much power over these men that she belittled them. If people are going to argue that this book is feminist I would ask them to look at the one character that is in control. The person who is in control is Nurse Ratched. Everything the men do must go through her until Mcmurphy snaps and shows he has some power as well. The Nurse has so much control over Mcmurphy that she even…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An Ideal Husband Analysis

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Different characters in the play have taken different roles that bring out a clear picture of the position of women, for example, the conversation between Sir. Robert and Mrs. Cheveley when the former asks the latter if science can come to grips with the problems of women; this sets the implication that women are very much complex. Despite the fact that the majority of male characters have problems with women, most women as well have issues with men. A number of them have disagreements with their husbands, and they suggest that men need education although they are not sure of the men’s capacity to…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear is a distressing feeling or emotion, everyone will feel fear at one point, it’s caused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc. During the story, Amari felt fear so many times, here are three of the times. In Part One, chapter nine, a red-headed sailor took Amari when they were on the boat. She thought she was going to be raped by the man, but instead the red-headed man taught her English. “‘Scream!’ he yelled at her harshly./ Amari did not know what he meant, so she just sat there, about to faint from fright.” -page 51. In Part Five, chapter twenty-four, Tidbit is taken by Clay to be used as gatorbait, Amari was taken with Clay and his friends too. She was fearful that Tidbit was going to be hurt. Tidbit survived, but Amari showed that she was sick of being docile. “‘Stop!’ she cried hysterically. ‘Please stop! Bring Tidbit back. Please!’ She broke down sobbing.”-page 161. In Part Seven, chapter thirty-five, Clay finds Amari while she was running to Spanish territory. Clay grabbed her and threatened her, but Polly had gotten the gun and…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, Ruth is portrayed as a calm, thoughtful woman, who would do everything…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Misogyny and women’s inferiority run rampant through the play, and the treatment of Ophelia and Gertrude is devaluing, cruel, and inherently oppressive.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the time Shakespeare was active, society was vastly different to today. Not only were class boundaries more distinct, but so too were the differences in gender and their accompanying rights. It is my opinion that Shakespeare can be seen to pre-empt the emerging role women would come to have in society, rather than the establishment of male dominance, I see the play as a satirical social commentary on the treatment of women at the time.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The portrayal of the women characters in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, illustrated stereotypical women based on a feminist’s point of view.…

    • 2160 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Life is not easy whatsoever, but eventually it will end. Live life to the fullest, persevere through every trial and never give up. All people endure their earthly existence differently, some have an easier time enduring life, while other people have an exceedingly tough time. Women in the middle east go through life experiencing problematic and painful trials everyday. In Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, tells us the story of the suffering and day to day life of two struggling women. Mariam and Laila the women referred to in the book, have little to no freedom in their lives. The reasoning behind that is they reside within a male dominant community in the middle east. Mariam and Laila are both beaten constantly, but the culture believes that women should be seen and not heard. To endure life it takes love, hope, and…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Like modern racism, modern sexism is characterized by the denial of continued discrimination, antagonism toward women's demands, and lack of support for women (for example, in education and work).” (Swim) A good example of this is when Beneatha Younger was judged and belittled by her family because she was a woman. They did not think that she was competent enough to go to school to be a doctor based solely on the fact she was a female. Another character in the story who acted in a sexist manner towards her was George; he represented an obstacle that Beneatha must face in order to accomplish her goal of becoming a successful female doctor. George is a discouraging figure in Beneatha's life, he constantly puts her down by telling her that he…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Feminism In The Time Machine

    • 2294 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The play is still held in high esteem by critics in relation to feminism as the play contains strong working class women and he “did not ignore the difficulties raised by his male experience of the relationship between the sexes or forget the differences within the women’s movement itself.” Shaw wished for both man and woman to work in harmony in partnership with one another in order to achieve various goals for the human race such as “happiness, welfare and perfection.” He had also declared himself in favour of the right to vote for women and has declared that both the sexes should possess equal political rights. (Griffith,…

    • 2294 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sexism In Hamlet

    • 1394 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Throughout all generations, women in society are constantly being misrepresented and depicted as fragile creatures who are undeserving of both attention and admiration. The degeneration of women can be seen in the Elizabethan Age, where all roles in various plays were played by men due to the distorted representation of women who were deemed to be unworthy to act on stage. Not only was sexism present in real life, but also in a number of Shakespearean tragedies where female characters endured the distress of gender inequality. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, sexual discrimination is a recurring theme that focuses the negative portrayal of woman, emphasized by the only two existing female characters, Gertrude and Ophelia. These two women have no choice…

    • 1394 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A major difference is that today there are feminist movements out to abolish gender inequality whereas during Shakespeare’s time, women were fully aware of their role in society and generally shared the same viewpoint as the men did. Despite that the recent precedents of Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth, they shared the age’s distaste…for the notion of women’s involvement in politics. There was a hierarchy of sexes and each had their own role in society. Men were masculine, they were not ruled by emotion, they were strong and hard working. Women belonged in the home, they were ruled by men and by their emotions and therefore were thought to often make bad decisions. By blurring the lines between sexuality and gender in his plays, Shakespeare deconstructs these norms to display their ambiguity. Masculine men can play effeminate women roles (which they did on stage) and effeminate women can play masculine men roles. Shakespeare sought to defeat these norms, he sought to show that sexuality and gender are ambiguous and mutable. One reason may be that Shakespeare found their traditional attributes of modesty, intuition and high-spiritedness highly suitable material for his comedies, and in varying blends and degrees, all his comic heroine’s have these characteristics. They never go beyond what an Elizabethan audience would have found acceptable in a woman: it is rather that Shakespeare exalts the positive, rather than the negative traits.He could be viewed as a feminist in today’s standards because of his attempt to deconstruct the unwritten rules about gender and sexuality in society. Shakespeare also uses sexuality and gender roles as a tool of manipulation. The manipulator uses sexuality and…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To persevere is to maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement and continue consistently. Throughout the novel, it is present how much women struggle. Both Mariam and Laila have endured so much heartache partially because they are women, but yet have managed to have pulled together the strength to persevere. Mariam, from the moment she was conceived, endured hardships because of the fact that her Mother was not married to her Father, thus making her a harami (bastard). Nana (Mariam’s mother) gives her lessons on life from her own experience. “There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don’t teach it in school . . . Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure . . . It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have…” (Housseini, 18) Here is the truth of life for women that Nana foreshadows early in the novel. This lesson essentially becomes prophetic for the end of the novel and it shows how women had to endure in order to survive in their society. Endurance is something familiar to Mariam. Very soon after her mother died, at the age of fifteen Mariam was forced to marry a harsh, shoemaker who was at least thirty years older than her named Rasheed. Mariam was forced to push aside any feelings of sorrow and even guilt of her mother's death as well as her father's rejection, and had to deal with what she was given, despite her strong dissatisfaction. However, the forced marriage is not the last of the troubles Mariam had to face as a woman. Being the wife of an abusive man in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule made life extremely painful and arduous. Even the years before the Taliban arrived in Kabul, Rasheed was physically, mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive to Mariam. For eighteen years before Rasheed married Laila, Rasheed abused Mariam to the extent where nothing pleased him. Rasheed had a very short temper and would ridicule and then hit Mariam over minor…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    From A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, 1959. Reprinted by permission of Jewell Gresham Nemiroff.…

    • 2980 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Family Ties

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin In The Sun” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” are both stories that are connected by the common factor of family values. Although both stories have their own individual qualities it is the heritage and importance of family that brings both stories together. The similar personalities of Beneatha from “A Raisin In The Sun” and Dee from “Everyday Use” are a good example of how family values dominate the stories and the characters in them. Both Beneatha and Dee come from families rich in culture, history and traditions but strive to find individuality outside of their family’s norms. However, it is the way in which they approach conformity that is a testament to how one should and shouldn’t go about this process.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays