Beneatha, the only formally educated member of the family, hopes to become a doctor. All these dreams hinge on a ten-thousand-dollar insurance check that comes to the family as a result of Big Walter Younger's death, but as is soon shown, not everyone's dream can survive. Events within the family as well as outside of it cause each person to make a choice that none of them could imagine making at the beginning of the play.
Set between the end of World War II in 1945 and the full momentum of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, A Raisin in the Sun examines racial prejudice and discrimination from several perspectives. When the Youngers buy a house in the white neighborhood of Clybourne Park, they are subjected to racist neighbors who try to keep the black family out of their neighborhood. In addition to this external racism, the Youngers also grapple with prejudice and racial identity within their own family. From Beneatha's desire to commune with her African heritage to Walter's rejection of what he calls "the world's most backward race of people," the expectations of race within the Younger family are complex and varied.
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