Social Evolution and Demographic Change in Lorraine Hansberry’s (A Raisin in the Sun) And Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park”

This paper attempts to investigate social evolution and demographic change in Lorraine Hansberry’s (1930-1965) masterpiece  A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Bruce Norris’s (1960---) Clybourne Park (2010). It explores how far the dreams and hopes of the black Younger family are fulfilled in the play, and to which extent the family is keen on mobility towards Clybourne Park, the white area, thereby defying the challenges to movement . As for Norris’s  Clybourne Park , the play features two time periods: Act I is set in 1959; whereas Act II takes place in 2009. In Act I, a white couple is moving from Clybourne Park in order to build a better future in another place. It happens to be that it is the Younger family of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun that has bought this white couple’s house. However, the white residents of Clybourne Park are discontent with the arrival of this first black family for racial reasons. In Act II the tables are turned and the place has become a gentrified black area. After the passage of fifty years, the same house is bought by a young white couple who plan to raze the house and re-structure it. Corresponding to the disapproval of the whites in Act I, the black residents disapprove of the white couple’s arrival and their intended action. Hence, the present study tackles issues of race, social evolution, demographic change; and, more importantly, explores how far property and possession would give way to an absolute right of defending one’s interests and the interests of the surrounding community.