Petrie's Film Adaptation: Placing A Raisin in the Sun in a New Light Anonymous 12th Grade

The American Dream varies for individuals, but for most it includes providing a stable home for their children and ensuring future generations will have more opportunities to become successful. In the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, she carefully develops the characters to allow readers to understand their struggles and attempts to rise above oppression. Director Daniel Petrie adapted Hansberry’s play into a film and while the original theme of oppression is still conveyed, the delivery of the message is altered and displays the Youngers’ struggle differently. The film adaptation does not entirely present the Youngers’ as utterly impoverished African Americans as Hansberry does, but rather paints the family to be as respectable as possible without making them white. Director Petrie, although he attempts to embody the theme of the obligation of society to fight racial discrimination, he takes a far more passive approach than Lorraine Hansberry.

In the play, Beneatha is presented as hope against the oppression she is suppressed by which reinforces her central theme. However, Petrie minimizes her role in establishing the central theme. Beneatha embraces her ethnicity in the play, however Petrie removes this aspect...