Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

A Raisin in the Sun is a play written by a lady named Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote the play to mimic how she grew up in the 1930s. Her purpose for the play was to expose how life was for a segregated black family during the pre-civil rights era. Hansberry introduces us to a family, called the Youngers, which includes Mama, Walter, Beneatha, Ruth, and Travis. The play takes us through the struggles of the family, which includes many social issues. The social issues that Hansberry exposed in A Raisin in the Sun are discrimination, poverty, and abortion.
One of the biggest social issues exposed in the play is discrimination. Discrimination on the Younger’s family is exposed in a variety of ways. For example, Mama buys a house in a white community and when asked about it she states, “Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses. I did the best I could” (Hansberry 2.i). Back in the pre-civil rights era, lenders used discrimination against African-Americans and charged higher rates to black borrowers. Michelle Gordon states, “While a white family could rent a five-room apartment for $60 a month in Cicero, for example, a black South Side family of four could pay $56 per month to live in one half of a two-room flat, infested with rats and roaches, and even …show more content…
When Ruth discovers that she is pregnant, difficult decisions come up for her. She understands that the child will be another mouth to feed, another place to sleep, and another thing that takes money. Ruth visits a doctor and decides to put her name down for an abortion. An abortion went against all of Ruth’s beliefs, but she felt trapped because, “[T]he Youngers love their children and do not want to lose another to poverty” (Ardolino). In the end, Ruth decides to keep the baby. She realizes that giving life to a child is much more important than her own scared feelings from