A Raisin in the Sun Play (1959) by Lorraine Hansberry and City of Glass (1984) by Paul Auster - Essay Example

In developing a convincing literature work, are compelled to come up with strategic styles, which heavily communicate the responses of the novel. The strategy that the applies should be unique and not easily understood by the audience. There lacks a genre that compels the author to rules of developing the novel. In fact, the author processes decision based on the flow of ideas and not by the rules of the genre. The incoming research will investigate two unique literature works, courtesy of the A Raisin in the Sun Play (1959) by Lorraine Hansberry and City of Glass (1984) by Paul Auster. While the latter is a novel, the former is a play. The two literatures works attempts to present different stylistic devices. In the play, the author was more concerned with developing the themes to reflect on the innate lives of character. In the novel, the author was more interested in bringing it contrasting positions about the genre. How African Americans live across or between cultures. Considerably, the play is considered a classical work of American drama regardless of its background or genre. However, the play presentation of African-American lives increased controversy over time. In particular, the play puts a strong emphasis on the parochial injustices of racial intolerance. The play focuses on the specific dilemmas facing African Americans in the city of Chicago soon after the world war. Younger families seem to have more trouble than the older generations. The play recreates the south side of the story where African Americans of different classes’ pursuits are packed together, with young urban intellectuals. Convincingly, African-Americans live a competitive, yet discouraging and traumatizing life across cultures. The desire to achieve a given social order justifies their economic disparities. As such, these cultures are significantly challenged when it comes bettering of social conditions. The play further portrays a black matriarchal family structure that is rooted in several value systems such as capitalism, black feminism, pan-Africanism and religious fundamentalism. The presence of conflicting desires between family members and those outside the family circle permits inter-extrafamilial dialog. Although they attempt to unveil their identity, the black families are succumbed to a heavily rooted need for African culture. Per se, young urban intellectual lie beneath and Asagai, as well as, the working-class people like Walter, Ruth or Mama differs significantly with the larger uneducated lot. This is projected from the existing class differences. In fact, Lorraine discusses the impact of labor and housing discrimination on the American dreams of the black population through the experiences of two different generations. In summary, a few members of the younger black societies are in a position to accomplish their dream. Impact of Race, class, and gender shape on ones identity Precisely, Hansberry experience on race, class and gender is rather negative. She was eight years old when her family moved to into a white neighborhood in a Chicago suburb. Although her father had won a 1940 Supreme Court case giving him the right to purchase the home in what had been racially restricted community, his victory was harassed, and their home was vandalized. At the end of the play, the young family moved on to protest of their new white neighbors. In the 1960s, after months of Raisin debut on Broadway, racial issues in America were being played out with demonstrations and marches in support of integration. Fatal violence in opposition to it soon followed. Lorraine Hansberry’s play forecasts the breakdown in black marriages and interracial conflicts. Hence, the impact of social change and materialism on all homes and communities changes with time. The play serves as a contrast to the 1950s understanding of the black women. Often mistaken, the role of black women was changing with time, so did the ideas about home and identity. Thus, as part of these women’s movement, they challenged the notions that the home defined a man’s masculinity and success. In relation to class, race and gender, the progress towards equality was made through the passing of civil rights laws; African American women who understood themselves because of gender combined with race, and developed a new image of equality. Convincingly, the play proves that racial equality outside the home could exist if only when gender equality existed in it. The proposition therefore meant that the average wages for black men could be suppressed by racism, which made it necessary for black women to work outside the home as well. There is an also justification that ignored black women growing education achievement proved an even greater opportunity for economic gains at a time when materialism was growing and encroaching on the home. In fact, black household incomes of two working adults, simply could not keep up with the image of the American Dream as an ever-large home. According to the play, women, that is whether married, or single working or homemakers working outside the home – were still primarily responsible for the home and for protecting their children from harm, even as violence found its way into white neighborhoods. Justifiably, after years of hearing from individuals, mostly women Lorraine concluded that black women were the worst hit by discrimination. Primarily, the disconnection between plays and women’s experiences persuaded the writer to come with the play. Audience presuppositions about genre Under the flamboyant New York Trilogy series of novel by Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985) influences the audience presumptions about the genre. Significantly, understanding of the genre has often influenced the quality of decisions amongst the audience community. Paul Auster’s detective novel the City of Glass is the story of a man, whose life accidently angles off. As he blunders into the complexity of a criminal case in the search for a significant principle, the man adapts his action to the stranger until he finally loses himself. Reflectively, although Auster novel is based on the nature of the function of language is rather non-visual. The novel managed to create a visual language full of metaphors, icons and symbols that add a new layer of meaning to the story. Hence, justifiably, City of Glass is a novel followed by a definition of the anti-detective genre with the intention to point out, that the visual language of the City of Glass, the graphic novel, which reflects the genre. The novel graphical structure and composition appeals to an audience that its a fiction novel. Paul Auster plays with the audience presumptions about the genre for an American audience, but because it found great success in Europe, which eventually established Auster’s name in the United States. The trilogy makes significant if the subversive application of crime, a victim, an investigator and extensive set of clues. Some clues are misleading, and the narrative twists do not follow the conventions of the genre. In fact, the New York Trilogy explores the extent to which a sense of identity that relies on the perceptions of those around, rather than being a matter of individual choice. The trilogy typifies Auster fictions in the sense that it is characterized by a playful postmodern manner, although it is simultaneously explored on issues of contemporary urban life. In other words, the outcome of a heavy action thriller, crime –detective, turns out to be a social genre. Interrogate language in City of Glass The City of Glass calls into question the function of the author’s fundamental ground and reassuring certitude in the world of the fiction. However, to bring out the ideas, the author applies a superior interrogative language, whereby he insistently frustrates the efforts of the author to achieve an author perspective on the events in which they are engaged to. Furthermore, the novel frustrates the reader’s critical attempt to locate the real Paul Auster behind the scene. Reflectively, Paul Auster in the text is either, simultaneously a manipulative master plotter or a playful minor character. The implications of the criticism of detective fiction are clear. Convincingly, the City of Glass is more than a sophisticated puzzle. From the above assessment, the author undermines a reading, which reinforces the interpretation of all rounded detective fiction. Terms such as master reader, master plot or master plan are used interchangeably. Auster stages a complex play with his name associated or dissociates themselves and his mode of authorship with an author character who is marginal, major or master plotter. Hence, one can prove that the novel does not merely expand or change the possibility one among many in detective fiction. In fact, the novel demonstrates the author’s function in detective fiction, which provides a reflection and where the reader can move with assurance through the text positioned beyond the events of the text and the effects that it optimally guarantees. Reflectively, the author connects ideas in the novel by suggesting that they are there since they are supposed to be there. Hence, in the novel, there is no crime, no villains, no heroes and no end. The output is a position, which is a greater mastery of authority than in the traditional detective story, a kind of meta-mastery that stands behind on only the events and characters in the novel but the writing of the novel itself. However, the interpretation suggests by the text of the City of Glass implies that what the author knows and withholds from the reader is not the redeeming truth but the solution that puts the mystery to rest. In fact, the whole conception is a sham that is built on nothing but represents itself as Auster of well-connected ideas. Conclusion Both the two assessments have indicated that the author is more interested in bringing out the ideas; hence breaking traditional rules of literature is warranted. In both assessments, it is clear that the author is more interested in the cognitive abilities of the reader. Indeed, the assessments have proved that the author relies on the understanding of the audience to continue ideas in the plot. However, the thematic influence of the literature work is flexible, thus properly orienting ideas. Works Cited Auster, Paul. City of Glass. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon, 1985. Print. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, 2003. Print. Read More