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?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
When
Lorraine Hansberry wrote her play, "A Raisin in the Sun," she took its title from a 1951 jazz poem by Langston Hughes. The play, directed by Lloyd Richards, had its Broadway debut on 11 March 1959, and starred Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Diana Sands. Two years later, in 1961, it was made into a film directed by Daniel Pietrie with the Broadway cast. Both the play and the movie garnered multiple nominations and awards. Several revivals -- both on film and across the boards -- have been produced.The story centers on the dreams and struggles of the Younger family in their bid to leave the tiny, two-bedroom apartment where they have lived for years on the south side of Chicago. Mr. Younger the elder has recently passed away, and his family anxiously waits for the insurance check to arrive. When it finally comes, the family is divided about how to use the money. The widow, to whom the check is made, wants to use the funds to move the family out of their lower-middle-class apartment building into a house of their own. Her daughter wants to use it to complete her studies for a medical degree. Her son wants to go in with friends and buy a liquor store. Her daughter-in-law wants her own son and the baby on its way to have a chance for a better life.
An exploration of the dreams, setbacks, and triumphs of a mid-twentieth century family, Raisin presents the American dream as the worthy aspiration of any and all citizens. However, though the daughter does aspire to the American dream in the form of a medical degree, she also becomes enthralled with the idea of her African heritage, and with Nigeria as a land of opportunity.The kernel of Hughes' poem -- the idea of a dream deferred -- also constitutes the theme of Hansberry's play. In the poem, however, the tension of racial suppression leads to an explosion whereas in the play it leads to amalgamation. Granted, the assimilation goes against the express wishes of the white folks who own homes around the Youngers' new property, but the Youngers promise to try their best to blend in by being "good neighbors."
Though the Youngers' decision to move into the middle-class suburb is presented as a noble thing, somehow it strikes me that if they flee from the low-class apartment building to the middle-class suburbs, they might better themselves materially, but only by accepting the definition of value of the standard, white American dream. And isn't that the very thing the poem warns against? That instead of exploding in rage, the dream only sags, only stinks like rotten meat.
