A Raisin in the Sun Textual Analysis (2008)
The film ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ (2008) is the hybridity genre of comedy and a realist drama. Its setting is a small apartment in Chicago, in the 1950s at times of racism segregation and also segregation towards women. The situation is that the protagonist is the film wants to be rich. The target audience for this film would be from the age of 18+ as I feel it is directed more to the older people in society although the film is a PG.
Its demographic audience would be some one of the B-C2 range. ‘A Raisin in the Sun Todorov’s narrative structure starts with equilibrium as even though the family is poor they are still happy even though they are struggling. Also as they receive the life insurance from Lena’s late husband. It moves on to disruption of equilibrium as when Lena gives Walter the money he loses it in his business. The disequilibrium continues as Ruth, Walters wife falls pregnant and is scared to tell Walter.
The reinstatement of equilibrium is when Lena buys the house and they are all able to move in and are finally happy. The codes and convections that show the poorness of the family were there dress codes. There all wore cloths that would be worn by someone of a lower class as they were dirty and you could see that they were sewn back up in places. If they were of the richer class they would wear expensive suits and dress.
They lived in a small apartment where there son had to sleep on the sofa, Beneatha and Lena had to share a room, this connotates that the family are struggling and there not enough room for everyone in the small apartment. They had to wake up early in the morning just to have a bath in time for work. All these add up to the fact that the segregation in those times was bad, and black people had to struggle to survive, and be persistent to be able to find their way through life. A Subversion of gender comes in three times; Firstly Walter ridicules Beneatha for wanting to be a doctor.
In the 1950s women tended to be nurses not doctors as they felt men were much more capable and smarter this. But Beneatha had the persistence and had family should of supported her. The second time is when Lena Younger chooses to give Walter the money instead of Beneatha who needed it more for her education, just because Walter was ‘the man of the house’ by Lena’s gesture codes you can connotate that she didn’t really want to give him the money but felt she had to just to please him..
The third time was when Beneatha began to say that she doesn’t believe in God, which earned her a slap across the face from her mother. The director increases the diegetic sound of the slap to emphasize on the importance of it. Also bringing in a close up on Beneatha’s face to show her reaction. Her reaction dennotates shock however connotates the fact that she’s hurt that her mum would ever do something like that to her.
