Yesterday And Today Essays - English-language Films,

Yesterday And Today In the four year between 1861 and 1865 this country was in civil war over the rights and freedom of blacks in America. When all was said and done, the blacks won their freedom and gained several rights that would make their lives better. Nearly one hundred years later, in 1959, Lorraine Hansberry wrote her great play, A Raisin in the Sun. It described the everyday life of a black family in the Southside of Chicago sometime after World War II. Throughout the play, Hansberry talks of the difficulties that the Younger family faces trying to get from one day to another; the problems that should have been resolved by the Civil War. Even after the Civil War and this play, many of these problems still exist today. The first difficulty that the Younger family faces is poor housing. The play starts off in a small two bedroom apartment with Ruth waking up her son, Travis, who sleeps on the couch in the living room. He sleeps on the couch because one bedroom is used by Ruth and Walter and the other by Mama and Beneatha. Every morning they wake up early so they can get to the one bathroom that is shared by all of the other families that live in the complex. When Mama talks about putting a down payment on a new house, Ruth says, Well, Lord knows, weve put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now (p. 1817). When she says rat trap you would naturally think of some of the houses today with boarded up or broken windows, unattended yards, and streets that are covered with potholes. But in the movie, it is nothing like that. The movie depicts the apartment in a very livable way. You can say they made the best of a bad situation. There is also discrimination in Hansberrys play. It is displayed in a couple different ways. Walter cannot get any job except as a chauffer for white family. When Ruth says. So you would rather be Mr. Arnold than be his chauffer (p. 1811), she knows that he is tired of being low man on the totem pole and wants to be able to give his son the luxuries of life. While on the other hand Ruth and Mama work in kitchens and do house work for white families. And finally, Beneatha is going to school to become a doctor, and all she gets from Walter is harassment because she is a black female. At one time he even say, 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 (p. 1813). He himself is discriminating his own sister by stereotyping a womans place in society. Although it is illegal, this type of discrimination is still fairly common today . If a person of a minority and a white person both go in for an i nterview for two positions, it is more likely that the white person will get the better of the two jobs. Just because a company says that they are an, equal opportunity business, does not mean that they always stick to it because there is usually a way to get around most things. Another way that they are discriminated against is prices for the necessary items needed in life. As Margaret B. Wilkerson points out in her introduction to the original screen play, there is a scene where Mama stops to buy fruit at the local market, but is angered by the flippant and disrespectful white clerk as well as the poor quality and high price of fruit that, as she says, was at the Last Supper (p. xxxii). So Mama went out of her way and went to an open market in Chicagos far Southside, to an open air market that was ran by probably predominately black seller that had top quality produce for a fraction of the cost. You can see this trend in prices even today. Not only is it towards minorities, but this also affects whites. It seems to be the wealthier the community