A Raisin in the Sun Dreams Deferred

James Baldwin first wrote this book in 1957 and it tells the story of two brothers who went down two completely different roads in life. The narrator is an Algebra teacher and his brother Sonny is a drug addict. Even though they grew up in the same home together unfortunately the brothers also grew up in the Harlem Ghetto together. This was a place filled with crime, drugs, and prostitution. This is a great source for me because it is one of the stories I am completing my research paper on.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow follows the life of a school teacher named Ichabod Crane. He travels to a small village called Sleepy Hollow. The author tells a tale of a man, Ichabob, who becomes obsessed with a young woman because of her family status. He shows how greed can lead to your ultimate demise. Ichabob is living with any farmer who will board him and knows that marrying Katrina will change his financial status. Things do not work out for the two of them and Ichabod becomes part of the towns history. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow will be a useful source for me because it to is one of the stories I am completing my research paper on.

In this poem the author is describing what might happen when you are unable to achieve your dreams. Dreams in the poem means something a person wants to achieve but something is preventing you. When this poem was written in 1951 there was still a lot of segregation in the world. Blacks were not awarded the same opportunities as whites and forced to live in run- down areas considered the “ghetto”. This poem has several descriptions such as “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun” as to how a person may feel being unable to follow their dreams. This poem will be a useful source for me because it explains how Sonny and his brother felt trapped in the Harlem Ghetto and the obstacles they faced.

This book discusses the drug life in Harlem. The author gives us her first hand her knowledge on the very few options blacks have. You either sell drugs, live off the system, or become one of the very few that make it out and become successful. Some like our narrator in Sonny’s Blues have successful careers but still cannot escape the ghetto. This is also a useful source because it shows the limited resources people in Harlem face.

In this article the author discusses marrying for money. Wanting financial stability and is something everyone wants. She states that a friend’s grandmother would say “Marry for money, you can always learn to love”. Reading this statement immediately made me think of Ichabob Crane who only wanted to marry Katrina Van Tassle for her money. Marrying Katrina would have given him claim to her family fortune. This is a useful source for me because marrying for money was relevant in the 1819 and is still relevant today in 2018.

In this report Caroline Ratcliffe and Emma Kalish discuss the obstacles children in poverty face and how this affects them as they become adults. They state the following: “Family and neighborhood characteristics relate to success in young adulthood among persistently poor children”. As they give a list of children who grow up to be successful among the four factors was that children who are successful “live in less disadvantaged neighborhoods and less segregated cities with less segregated schools” according to their research. I find this useful and will use it as a source. Sonny in “Sonny’s Blues” became a product of his environment growing up in the Harlem Ghetto and turned to drugs.

Sleepy Hollow is a film that is loosely based on Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. In the film Icahbob travels to the village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of deaths. While there he gets entangled in the village’s web of witchcraft, deceit, and horror. The town is being haunted by a headless horseman who has been conjured by the Mrs. Van Tassle. I will not be using this as a source as the film and book tell two different stories and have two different endings.

According to Webster’s Dictionary greed is defined as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed”. How can a person determine how much is enough, or how little is too little. A person’s status is sometimes defined by how much money they have, what kind of car you drive, and/or the neighborhood you live in. I find this source useful for my character Ichabob whose greed for the Van Tassle wealth led to his fate. 

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