Answer: When Lorraine Hansberry wrote "A Raisin in the Sun", she was inspired by Langston Hughes poem, "Harlem". Hughes, a black poet who thrived during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, wrote "Harlem" in 1951. It evokes the despair of African Americans in cities after the Great Depression and before the civil rights movement. In the poem, Hughes questions a "dream deferred". Hansberry borrows from the poem for her title to highlight important role that dreams play in the story… will their dreams be realized or will the "dry up like a raisin in the sun?"
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
--Langston Hughes
A Raisin in the Sun" will air on Monday, February 25 (8:00-11:00 p.m., ET), the night after ABC's live telecast of the 80th Annual Academy Awards.
