1) Describe the
importance of the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry to American
culture.
It is important to American culture because it “presaged the
revolution in black and women’s consciousness” (5) and also because it “speaks
to the issues that are now inescapable: value systems of the black family…the
ongoing struggle it portends” (6). It was the first commercially successful
black drama.
2)
Explain the need to cut several scenes from the play.
Several scenes were cut because of “happenstance,”
(6) the unpredictable happenings that occur in any play, but more importantly
because the running time of 3-4 hours was too long for a “first play” by an
unknown African-American, female playwright (7).
3) Describe how these cuts affected the overall meaning of the play.
Some of the cuts “focused
and strengthened the drama” as most of the other ideas are “implicit elsewhere,”(7)
However, it was later realized that they also “did interfere drastically…with
the way the play was interpreted and assessed” (8).
4) What did James Baldwin mean when he wrote that "Americans suffer from an ignorance that is not only colossal, but sacred" (8)? How does this relate to the play?
