Author: Kailey Valenti

Easily, the most interesting plot point in act 1 of A Raisin in the Sun is Walter and Beneatha’s exchange over who is entitled to their late father’s insurance money. Beneatha argues that because it’s Mama’s money, only she can decide on how to use it. Walter claims that it is unfair for Beneatha to accept Mama’s money to help pay for her medical school. Walter makes it seem as though his opposition to her career choice is only based upon the fact that the rest of the family has had to make sacrifices because of it. At the height of their argument, Walter says “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people-then go be a nurse like other women-or just get married and be quiet.” This statement proves that Walter opposes Beneatha’s plight not only because she is using Mama’s money, but also because she’s a woman. Because this play is based in the 1950s, blatant sexism was a lot more common and accepted. Beneatha was extremely progressive in her aspirations, whether she cared or not. She is an extremely strong-willed and intelligent woman, and back then this threatened men, especially men who had trouble supporting their own wives and children, like Walter. I believe this is the reason sexism went on for much longer than it should have. Men, who for millenniums have been the hunter, the breadwinner, the leader, were threatened by women who believed they were more than someone to cook for you. To clean for you. To raise your kids for you. Beneatha is a wonderful example of women in the second wave of feminism. These were the women who realized they deserved more than just the right to vote, and all American women today should be thankful for their strength. Unfortunately, feminism today has taken a wrong turn. While feminism is still extremely necessary and important in many countries across the world, in America, women are very much equal to men in 2018. Third wave feminism in America is, in my opinion an unnecessary force which is driving apart political peace in the US.

In the first act of A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha a very young African American female, aspires to become a doctor. Though many people, including her own family members, found her aspirations to be silly, she continued with her schooling. Today, female doctors are not uncommon, and women are seen in an array of different career fields. Though women today are equal to men, the feminist movement hasn’t come to an end. Do you believe that modern feminism is still necessary in today’s progressive society? Why? Why not?

Throughout Act 1 of A Raisin in the Sun, Mama is often portrayed as an almighty figure that must be respected, mostly because she is the character who has the money. Though Beneatha doesn’t exactly care about money in general as much as she cares about being able to make her own money, she disrespects the symbolic figurehead of the story. Mama believes that Beneatha will be able to be a doctor if God allows it to happen. This upsets Beneatha, because she’s “tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves.” More specifically, she doesn’t agree with anyone else getting credit for all the hard work she is doing to make a life for herself, not even God. Being an atheist in the 1950s was probably even more unacceptable than being a woman doctor. Beneatha is slapped by her mother who forces her to repeat the phrase “In my mother’s house there is still God.” I found this scene extremely disturbing. Religious discrimination may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you mention A Raisin in the Sun, and yet this scene is the one that most resonated with me because of its intensity. Beneatha doesn’t even have the free will to not believe in God in her own home, though I guess she’s free to think whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t speak it aloud. It’s obvious that religion is extremely important to Mama.

Do you think it was disrespectful for Beneatha to voice her religious views even though she knew it would upset her mother, the woman who pays for her medical school and supports her in many other ways? Or do you think that Beneatha voicing her religious views is just another trait that shows how strong willed and progressive she is for her time?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s “The Danger of a Single Story” provides real life examples of how humans identify others by their stereotypes rather than as individuals. Though most stereotypes were once based on some type of truth, no one person can fit into a single stereotype. Therefore, it is unfair to assume anything about a person before you know for a fact that it’s true. In Adiche’s story, she recounts to her audience the house boy her family had hired when she was a child, Fide. Adiche was only told one story about Fide’s family, that they were in poverty. Because she was only told this one story about Fide’s family, it was easy for her to draw conclusions about them. It was easy for her to assume that they were lazy or unskillful. When Adiche visited Fide’s family, his mother showed her a beautiful basket that his brother had made. She said “It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.” Because Adiche configured her opinion about Fide based on a stereotype of impoverished people, she was surprised to learn about the complexities of Fide and his family as individuals. We identify people or groups of people by simple definitions, because stereotyping makes it easier for us to make sense of the world in a simple way. By focusing on the simple rather than the complex, we miss half the story. Stereotyping others based on a single story is comparable to sharing what a book is about after reading only the title. What would most people assume about you based on their single story of you? And what would they not assume about you?

Adiche also recounts her college roommate’s impression of her as an african. She says “My Roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.” Her roommate was confused after learning that Adiche, an African, was not as different as she would’ve thought based on her stereotype of an average African person. A main point illustrated in Adiche’s story is similar to the message of Maya Angelou’s poem “Human Family.” We are more alike than we are unalike. Though we differ in our cultures, religions, and traditions, we are all born similar, because we are all human. Angelou says “in minor ways we differ, in major ways we’re the same.” In what obvious ways do you think humans are all similar?

We identify others by stereotypes rather than as individuals in a lot of different situations even when we don’t notice we’re doing it. One major topic where we as Americans find it hard to look past stereotypes is in politics. In politics we use single stories not only to simplify, but to criminalize the other side instead of considering their complex opinions. While it’s obvious that only looking at a single story is unintelligible, we often use the single story to support our own case. In what specific American political issues have we used the single story to support one side of an issue rather than addressing the single issue’s complexity?

We identify people or groups of people by simple definitions, because stereotyping makes it easier for us to make sense of the world in a simple way. Though we are all complex individuals with surprising backstories, we are evidently all alike in a major way.

Questions:

What would most people assume about you based on their single story of you? And what would they not assume based on what you look like?

 

In what obvious ways do you think humans are all similar?

 

In what specific American political issues have we used the single story to support one side of an issue rather than addressing the single issue’s complexity?

 

Hi! I’m Kailey, and this is my first semester at Cortland. I just finished my senior year of high school at Sachem North in Ronkonkoma, Long Island. I’m majoring in adolescent education with a concentration in english, and I’m minoring in musical theatre. My favorite musical is Spring Awakening. My favorite bands are Green Day, The Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Weezer. My favorite tv show is Big Brother, and my favorite books are anything by S.E Hinton or A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I’m excited to be starting this semester with all of you guys, but I’m not so excited to be doing my facilitation on the second day of class, so cut me some slack…Thanks!