Racism In The Bluest Eye And Raisin In The Sun

770 Words4 Pages
Over the years, race and racism has become the main topic of many novels, plays, movies, television series and all aspects of that nature. The issue of race and racism permeate American society and are of central concern for many, many people. Artists are always looking for new ways to get their ideas and feelings about race and racism heard. Since racism is an enormous part of the world’s history, literature was and still is something used very often to acknowledge victims of racism, in an attempt to get their stories known, and to teach the people of today how individuals’ circumstances differed based on how they were stereotyped or the color of their skin. Being taught about the past is the first step to not recreating it in the future. It doesn’t seem like anything was ever sugarcoated in the books I’ve read about racism. To me, it always felt like the authors were extremely being straightforward. Most writers want people to know the truth and that makes them very admirable. On the other hand, it is hard to tell if some writers even meant to touch upon this subject. These writers are hit with tons of criticisms for something they’ve done unintentionally. In Lorraine Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun, the way the Younger family overcame housing segregation was a fictitious example of a very real issue for black families throughout the United States before the civil rights movement. Hansberry had first-hand knowledge of working-class blacks who had rented from her father. She drew from a Langston Hughes poem, “Harlem,” which asks “What happens to a dream deferred… Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun…? Or does it explode?” In the play she tells the struggles of three generations of a poor black family. The courage of this family symbolizes the courage displayed during civil rights movement of the 1950’s in the United States. In Hansberry’s story, Walter
Open Document