Langston Hughes - Book Report/Review Example

? “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? / May be it just sags/ like a heavy load. / Or does it explode? (Harlem: A Dream Deferred - Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Vol.3.) Langston Hughes is one of the most influential African American writers of the twentieth century. He was one of the leaders of the ‘Harlem Renaissance” of the 20’s and 30’s that was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and that saw an upsurge of the cultural expression of the black people including musicians Musicians ,poets and writers. Not only black literature but other forms of expression by the blacks including the Jazz and Blues were the contribution of this movement. In fact 1920s are registered as the Jazz Age in the history of America. The core issue projected by the Harlem renaissance is the notion of “two-ness”, a divided awareness of one’s identity. W.E. B. Du Bois, one of the leaders of the movement introduces this theme of divided identity of the blacks, in his influential book, “The Souls of the Black Folks” (1903). “One ever feels his two-ness – an American and a negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings; two warring ideals in a black body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”.(Souls of the Black Folks, PP5). It is the spirit of the Harlem renaissance that is the essence of the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. She declares this indebt ness by taking the title of the play from the famous poem by Langston Hughes quoted above. Till this play the blacks were given only small and comic roles in theatre largely as ethnic stereotypes. Thus this play for the first time brings the life of the black family to the centre stage. She uses black vernacular through out the play, which is usually considered as an inferior shade of the language, by the whites. The play deals with the same concern that Du Bois raises, of the black identity in an oppressive white majority society. It deals with the issues and conflicts such as poverty, discrimination and the construction of African –American identity. The back drop is America of the fifties, just following the World War two, which was considered as years of prosperity with happy housewives and the blacks content with their inferior status. This rosy picture of the American society of the fifties gets canceled in this play which exposes the growing domestic discontent and racial tensions of those times. When staged in March 1959 for the first time, the black audience for a play was nearly non existent. But this play by Lorraine Hansberry brought the blacks into the theatre as the audience, for this was the first chance for them to see themselves and their own lives on the stage with characters talking their language. Youngers is an African American family living on the south side of Chicago in 1950s.The Rainsin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of this family. The play opens in the living room of the family. The detailed description of the room, leads the reader into the depressive atmosphere that prevails in the family in spite of the love they nurture for each other. “Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too often.All pretenses but living itself have long vanished from the very atmosphere of this room.” (Act 1, Scene 1, PP5). When the play opens, Ruth a 35 year old lady is trying to wake up her son sleeping in the sofa. She is living in the house with her husband Walter Lee and his family in that house. She is trying to make her son and husband to get ready for the day. Before starting any normal conversation, Walter Lee is asking his wife “Check coming today?”(Act1, Scene1, PP6).He is expecting a mail. This question about the check to come is repeated later in the play too. What Walter is asking about is the insurance check of $10000.This money is to come from the insurance policy of Late Mr. Younger .The money to come becomes the starting point for each of the family members to dream; they have their own ideas about what to do with that money. The head of the family, rather the matriarch of the family Mama wants to buy a house. That was the dream of her deceased husband which she also shared. Walter lee is Mama’s son who wants to invest the money in a liquor store with his friends. This he believes will end the financial problems of the family for ever. But his wife Ruth is not in agreement with her husband. She believes that Mama’s idea is more valid for she dreams of providing more room and opportunity for their son Travis. Another member of the family is Beneatha, Walter’s sister and Mama’s daughter. She wants that money for her medical education. She is one who is very conscious of the world outside the house, a world dominated by the whites and their values. She wants to search for her black identity in its roots in Africa. The dreams compete with each other and often clash as the play progresses. Ruth, in the meanwhile gets worried about her pregnancy. She is worried that one more child will increase the financial problems of the family. She considers an abortion but her husband puts down that idea. In the midst of contrasting views of how to spend the money, Mama puts a down payment for a house for the entire family. She believes that a space of their own and a space large enough will keep the family together which will help every member of the family. The New house is located in Clybourne Park, which is totally a white neighborhood. The future neighbors of the family do not want this black family to move into their exclusively white area. They send a representative of from Clybourne Park Improvement Association, Mr.Lindner. His mission is to try to bribe the family so as to avoid their moving into their neighborhood. He visits them and offers money in return for staying away. Though Walter loses the rest of the money of $6500 to his friend Willy Harris who persuaded Walter to invest the money in the liquor store, the whole family decides to resist the temptation of the bribe offered by their new white neighbors. Walter gets cheated by his friend who escapes with the money instead of investing it in the liquor store. The issue of the color of the skin comes up more prominently as the play progresses and as Beneatha rejects her suitor, George Murchison whom she believes is blind to the problem of racial discrimination Later she gets a proposal of marriage from her Nigerian boy friend. He wants her to complete her medical studies after which he proposes that they escape from this world of racial discrimination and migrate to Africa. The play ends before Beneatha makes her choice. May be the playwright herself is against this proposal of running away from a reality instead of facing it. The Youngers finally move out into their new house in the all white locality. Though there will be uncertainty and insecurity in the new neighborhood, they optimistically stick on to their dream of living a better life. They comes to agree between themselves that only by facing the realities, and by staying together can they change the realities of their own life. The play explores not only the racial tensions in the American society of the fifties but also the strains with in the black community, over how to react to and overcome the oppressive discriminatory system prevailing around them. The play poses difficult questions about identity as well as integration of the races. Through the character of Beneatha, Hansberry raises questions of female identity too. Beneatha is one character who is very confident of her self identity as well as her identity as a black woman. Her rejection of her suitor just because he is not aggressively conscious of the racial discrimination itself proves this. She seeks her identity as a black woman in the roots of the African woman. The racial issue is elaborately presented as a theme when the character of Mr. Lindner enters. The tension of the dominant white society in having a black family in their neighborhood becomes an integral theme of the play with this character. Through Ruth, the play Wright raises the issue of abortion too, which is to be considered very bold at a time when abortion was illegal. The play reasserts the right of all people whether white or black to have dreams. It also proposes that only through dreams that one can overcome the repressive social system of discrimination. The happiness of living can be attained only through such dreams to over come one’s own realities as well as the social realities in which one is living. The characters realize that dreaming together or remaining together in a dream is the most vital thing in a society which is repressive and discriminatory. Mama makes this idea explicitly clear when she compares her son Walter to Big Walter, (1918-1981) the great black harmonica player of the American blues and says that “ Big Walter used to say , he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, ‘ Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams- but he give us children to make them dreams seem worth while ‘ ( Act 1, Scene1, PP 29) Sterling Tucker, the black civil rights activist and writer says that there are two solutions available for the black community to survive the discrimination and racial repression of which one is survival through apathy. “Others of us find a way of slipping outside, of side stepping the pressure by living beyond the laws of the society. This solution is probably, less damaging psychologically”. (For Blacks Only, PP 101). A Raisin in the Sun advocates this second solution of living beyond the laws of the society. They have to unite or integrate “the two-ness” in their identity which Du Bois pointed out in the 20s, through a subversion both internal and external. ------------------------ Sources referred: 1) . Du Bois W.E. B, Souls of The Black Folks, Penguin Books, New York, 1989 2) Hansberry Lorraine, A Raisin in the Sun, Random House, May 2002. 3) Hughes Langston, Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Vol.3, Edited by Arnold Rampersad, University of Missouri Press 4) Tucker Sterling, For Blacks Only, Black Strategies for Change In America, Wm.B.Eerdmans Publishing Co.1971. Read More