REVISION
Opening sentence:
In both these 20th century social critiques of America, the writers -insert question-, however Fitzgerald’s tragic novel… (class, gender) and Hansberry’s realist drama… (race, gender, class)
CONTEXTS:
RAISIN- cusp of civil rights movement (prescient), published 1959, red-lining in states, the great migration, post ww2, assimilation, afrocentrism(superiority that africa is the best- Asagai becomes increasingly afrocentric)/pan-africanism, Jim Crow vs covert racism (Oh mama they dont do it like that anymore- Beneatha) , patriarchy and matriarchy, segregation and housing restrictions (autobiographical involvement), social realism but symbolic, hansberry’s family involved in law case Illinois when moved into white neighbourhood
GATSBY- jazz age/ flappers (female emancipation), published 1925 but set in 1922, prohibition of alcohol, post ww1/interwar, prohibition, old vs new money, old vs new world (East and West), Wall Street(financial boom of 1920s leading to GREAT DEPRESSION- ‘party is over’ fitzgerald prescient of the ‘hangover’ , 1930s depression), gambling and corruption, superficiality and social aspiration (autobiographical involvement), tragedy, symbolic and self-consciously literary
KEY INTENTS:
RAISIN: american dream is fake, to create hope amongst african americans, prove to her primary audience they are ambitious and their struggles as a community, didactic (educational) to a majority white audience (implied audience), centering the african american family experience > representation> the earliest attempt on stage to present a realism and reality (Hansberrys friend ‘black people turn their back on the theatre because the theatre turns their back on us’), assertive female characters, african american masculinity, intersectionality (Ruth)
GATSBY: american dream is fake, nihilistic, critical capitalism , modernist - relationships, criticise bourgeoisie and upper class americans, technology is bad (cars etc.), literary audience (implied readers), autobiographical (therapeutic/WW1), to assert himself as a writer, fame, racism and immigrant nationality bias casually replicated, critique the classism of America (“barbed wire”, “strata”) (ironic due to American exceptionalism identity- de Tocqueville)
Tocqueville expressed idea of: american excpetionalism, an immigrant nationality with no history of an entrenched aristocracy, never experienced the rigid class divisions that characterized European societies, immigrants from all stations of life to work their way up in the world, felt that they would soon achieve similar fortunes.
SETTINGS
RAISIN- the younger home, south side chicago, clybourne park, africa
TGG: gatsby’s mansion, the buchanan mansion, new york city, the valley of ashes and wilson’s garage, toms apartment, nicks house, the hotel suite, the cars, the train, east egg, west egg, midwest, europe (not bold= ideas)
ANOTHER INTRODUCTION:
In her African American domestic realist drama written on the cusp of the civil rights movement, A raisin in the Sun, and his tragedy which some critics have read as an elegy for the Jazz Age and the American Dream, The Great Gatsby, both Hansberry and Fitzgerald present relationships between individuals in their respective societies as difficult as a result of the social divides which characterise them. The writers have different focuses, however, due to their positionality within their Americas. While both texts explore how class tensions and gender lead to their characters struggling within relationships (Paragraph 1 and 2), Fitzgerald seems to grant cultural and social capital (Paragraph 3) a special focus in contrast to Hansberry’s centring a racial discrimination and African American lived experience in her groundbreaking drama.
INTRODUCTIONS
A.D/TRAGEDY- gatsby epiphany when he gets daisy , dream , doesn’t want to live vs walter epiphany of accepting racism around him
INTERSECTIONALITY- walter’s understanding his intersectionality doesn’t define him- patriarchy vs myrtle wanting to be upper class
In his African American domestic realist drama written on the cusp of the civil rights movement, A raisin in the Sun, and his tragedy which some critics have read as an elegy for the Jazz Age and the American Dream, The Great Gatsby, both Hansberry and Fitzgerald present how characters experience epiphany’s . The writers have different focuses, however, due to their positionality within their Americas. While both texts explore how characters epiphany’s lead them to understand that their intersectionality does not define them, (shown through Walter’s race and Myrtle’s social class), Fitzgeralds critics the American dream through his tragic hero Gatsby, presenting his epiphany through a nihilistic lens that by achieving his dreams, he no longer sees a reason to live. While Hansberry does also indeed position Walter’s epiphany through a nihilistic lens, Walter accepts instead accepts the racism around him due to his exhaustion of society.