Discuss the following:
Review the chapetr A Raisin in the Sun
Response below:
1. The play's main characters are Walter Lee, Mama, Ruth, and Beneatha. List three or more adjectives to describe each of these characters. What basic values does each character seem to express during the arguments that occur in their family? Do you sympathize with them equally? Why, or why not? What, evidently, was Walter Lee's father like?
2. At the end of the play, speaking to Ruth about Walter Lee, Mama says "He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he?" How does Mama appear to be defining manhood? What other possible definitions of man-hood come up directly or indirectly in the play? Identify places where characteristics of womanhood are brought up. In general, would you say that gender is at least as important in this play as race is? Why, or why not?
3. Analyze Asagai's conversations with Beneatha and the rest of her family. What does Hansberry suggest about the relations of Africans and Afri-can Americans in the late 1950s?
4. Although there is a white character, he makes only two relatively brief appearances, and no other white characters are shown. Why do you suppose Hansberry keeps the presence of whites minimal? You think this play is universal in its truths and concerns, or are you titled to see it as specifically about African Americans? Explain. s is this 1959 play relevant to life in the United States today?