A Raisin in the Sun the American Dream

A Raisin in the Sun the American Dream Abstract The American is defined by reaching the top no matter who you are or where you come from. In the ‘50s this dream revolved around materialistic values. This play focuses on a family with each member having a different dream and their journey as an African Americans. Walter, Mamas son learns the meaning of pride and keeping what his father has earned is more important than money. The play focuses on supporting each other through rough times and learning to love. In the end, they achieve their American dream despite the color of their skin. A Raisin in the sun The American Dream The American dream in the 50s was close to materialism. The ownership of consumer goods was believed to bring joy into a familys life. This stereotypical view governs the dream of one of the main characters in Lorraine Hansberrys play. The title of the play is based on â€Å"Harlem† by Langston Hughes, a poem that raises a question about a dream that is deferred. â€Å"Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?† (Rampersad, 1995, pg. 426) There are three main characters and all three of them of have dreams that have been prolonged for too long. A Raisin in the Sun is about the rocky journey they go through to acquire their dreams. The Youngers family has just received a $10,000 dollar check for their dead fathers life insurance policy. They live in a two bedroom apartment on the black side of town in Chicago. Racial prejudices against blacks in that era and a low income are the root of conflict in the family. Mama, deceased Mr. Youngers widow wishes to buy a house and fulfill the dream she once saw with her husband. Beneatha, Mamas daughter, hopes to find her identity through looking towards true African heritage. Walter, Mamas son, wishes to one day become rich. He wants to replenish his marriage and provide his son with all the opportunities he never had growing up. Walter wants to invest money in the liquor business with a few of his friends. Although the idea appalls Mama at first, she trusts and supports her son with his decision. The night before making the investment Walter tells his son about the business transaction he about to make while tucking him into bed. He tells the little boy that their lives will change soon and paints an elaborate and vivid picture of the future. He tells his son that when hes seventeen years old hell come home and park the Chrysler in the driveway. The gardener will greet him and when hes inside the house hell kiss his wife and come up to his sons room to see him browsing through brochures of the best colleges in America. He then tells his son that he will give him whatever he wants. Although Walter is somewhat materialistic in what he wants at the core he just wants a happy family and a son who should have all the chances he never had. During this time Mama buys a house to fulfill the dream she saw with her hu sband; the only one she can afford is in a white suburban neighborhood. Mr. Lindner a man from the neighborhood comes to the Younger house trying to convince them to not destroy the white community. He offers a lot of money in exchange for their acceptance. Meanwhile Walter looses all the money he has invested in the liquor store because I friend has run away with it. When he looses the majority of their financial resources the entire family falls into a deeper level of depression. At this time, Walter decides to take the money the white man has to offer. The thought of selling away their right vexes Mama, Walters sister and his wife. They detest Walter for dealing with his dead fathers money so easily and feel that he has lost his soul when he days we wants to be bought out by the white Mr. Lindner. Ultimately, loosing everything they have unites them because at the last moment Walter changes his mind about taking money from Mr. Lindner. Walter tells him that they have moved into the house because their father earned it for them. He continues by saying that they dont want to disturb the neighborhood peace or protest for bigger causes, and that theyd be nice neighbors. He tells Mr. Lindner that he doesnt want the money. At this moment the entire familys spirits are lifted and they are proud of the decision Walter has made. This act of standing by your family to achieve the American dream of succeeding no matter who you are and where you come from unites them. They learn to support each other and put their families before their own. By owning a house, having a high morale, and the support of their family, each of them is on their way to fulfill their American dream. References Foulis, Rhona (2005, March, 14). A Raisin in the Sun. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from Culture Wars Web site: http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2005-01/raisin.htm Potter , G and Struss, Joe. (2002, April, 02). Iowa State University. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from ISU Play Concordances Web site: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~spires/concord.html Rampersad, A (Ed.). (1995). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc..

Development of Speech Perception

Research had identified the foremost accomplishment of infancy and early childhood, and they are referring to language development. The milestones of linguistic achievement have been documented across cultures and suggest that infants follow a set of universal stages both in speech production and speech perception. On the stages in speech production shown by young infants in American English and other languages; a universal progression from cooing (1 to 4 months), to babbling (5 to 10 months), to meaningful speech (10 to 18 months) is shown (Ferguson, Menn, & Stoel-Gammon, 1992).Visual and auditory development is related with the development of speech perception. Infant vision is not that developed when they are born. They can see blurry vision but enable them to perceive familiar faces from unfamiliar ones. The infant is somewhat farsighted and has some degree of astigmatism because the retina is not yet fully developed. Newborn babies tend to have poor fixation capability, they hav e limited ability to discriminate color, limited visual fields, and an estimated visual acuity of somewhere between 20/200 and 20/400. ( http://www. tsbvi. edu/Education/infant/)Although visual progressions with infant are not that fully developed, it has been noted that they can recognize familiar faces already, especially with their mothers compared with strangers. As their visual perception improves, they begin to identify familiar faces especially the immediate families and began to respond my smiling to them. Infants started to become aware of his environment and begin to explore his world by gazing and started to become amaze with different colors especially the brighter ones compared before that they only see things in black and white.Aside from the visual perception, auditory system plays a vital role in speech development. Auditory system is more matured compared with visual system. It even started when baby is still inside the womb, when they recognize various sounds insid e the womb and even outside his environment like people voices, shower, and music. Thus, both visual and auditory leads to speech perception, and this even started when they are still fetuses, inside their mothers’ womb. Fetuses can even recognize their mothers’ voice, but not that familiar with their fathers’ voices.When the mother tells a story and sings to her unborn baby, when the baby is born and hears the story and music he hears he becomes familiar to it, and prefers to listen over and over again. It simply explains that familiarity to certain aspect plays an important role to infants learning. Newborns way of reacting to certain situations is through actions and making sound. When they are hungry or wet, they cry to let the mothers know what they need. When they like something they starts to smile and coo (like ah’s and oh’s).As infants started to grow, their speech also developed. They even began to babble, imitating how people speak. Thei r first few words could be â€Å"mama† or â€Å"dada† because they are already familiar with these words, and they are able to adapt and be able to express it by themselves. They can even respond to comforting tones, can distinguish recognizable voices and also responsive to changes in tone of voice, and to sounds other than speech. By the time they become toddlers, they can now speak and be able to convey what they want.Most of the words they know comes from the people within the environment, thus a good environment is encouraged to enable toddlers to learn â€Å"good† words. Because what they hear mostly, they adapt it and learned from it. Toddlers enjoy listening to music and even sing and dance to it. They like hearing stories and when accompanied with different tones of voice they become more amazed to it. They can already distinguish different body parts, and can name pictures in the book when asked. By the time they are already 3 – 4 years old, the y tend to ask questions and become more interested with several things.They begin to explore their own world by role playing, interacting with other kids and even conversing with adults. They start to combine 4 – 5 words and can make simple sentences. (â€Å"Child Development, p. 1067) now clearly express how they feel because they can already convey how they feel and they are easy to understand. When kids reached the age of 4 or 5, basic vocabulary and grammar have already been learned, this will continue to develop especially when they started to go to school.New words will be learned, although they are bombarded with more words they are able to perceive and learn from it. Slowly, their speech system has made a progress within few years. Families and environment are important factors in shaping one’s character through his speech. Speech not only pertains to what is being said rather it can also affect one’s character. A good character shines through his words , if it is filled with goodness and love, thus wisdom through his words could be attained to it. References: Cheour, M. Milestones of language development Development of Visual and Auditory Systems in Early Childhood Judith C. Goodman and Howard C. Nusbaum (1994)The Development of Speech Perception:The Transition from Speech Sounds to Spoken Words.The MIT Press Kuhl, P. K. (1983). Perception of auditory equivalence classes for speech in early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, 6, 263–285. Child Development, July/August 2004, Volume 75, Number 4, Pages 1067–108 http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/infant/page7.htm http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/departments/Dept1/progress96/node14.html   

Energy Drinks as an Emerging Social Problem Essay

It seems like there is a new drink on the markets that I beginning to stir some questionable issues on health issues. It does not contain alcohol, but simply is packed with sugar and caffeine. Energy drinks are â€Å"in† right now thanks to the media advertising and trying to sell their products. Debate has been stirred on whether anyone should be drinking these drinks, especially young adults and children. The stimulants contained within energy drinks can disrupt the hearts rhythm, elevate heart rates, cause hypertension, anxiety, headaches, interrupted sleep patterns and in some rare cases can lead to seizures. All of the combined ingredients in energy drinks and their effect are still not fully researched and unknown of the consequences, but definitely it has been figured out that energy drinks are NOT good for the body. What is now just an issued because â€Å"according to doctors† ; might later turn into laws where there has to be an age limit to be able to buy energy drinks. More than likely they won’t become illegal, but there will be a restriction on them for the safety of the younger population in the United States. As mentioned earlier drinking energy drinks is started to become a problem because doctors played the role of claimsmakers. Right now they are trying to convince the general public that something is wrong and something needs to be done about it. To them, consuming energy drinks is a â€Å"troubling condition†. Because of this discovery that energy drinks are bad for the body, the media began to cover this issue. It is not a big issue right now and cannot be described as a social problem because this emerging social problem has really only gotten to the media coverage stage. Time will still tell what the public reaction is going to be. Right now it seems like there has been no reaction to this issue. There are still 3 stages this emerging social problem need to go through; policy making, social problems work, and policy outcome. The claimsmakers have used typifying examples to try to show that energy drink consumption really is a problem. Natural News. com mentions that a 15 year-old boy with ADHD went to the hospital and was suffering from a seizure after drinking two bottles of Mountain Dew and his pill, but energy drinks have 3 to 5 times the amount of caffeine that sodas do. The claims warrants here are simple; something needs to be done to protect the younger population from troubling and unhealthy choices. In conclusion, claimsmakers want restrictions on energy drinks to make it harder for young adults to consume; thus a healthier America. Energy drink consumption seems to be the cigarette of their generation for a lot of young people. Just how cigarettes ended up with laws being made for them, it is very possible that energy drinks will get some kind of restriction on them. This debate on energy drink consumption has begun to get heated and forecasting a big change in policies for energy drinks are very possible in the near future. http://www. devonbate. com/energy-drinks-that-big-of-a-deal/ http://www. foxnews. com/health/2011/02/15/energy-drinks-harming-kids/ http://www. naturalnews. com/032786_energy_drinks_side_effects. html.

How Technology Has Become A Universal Value - 1414 Words

As I wait outside the Apple Store for my dad to find a parking space, my impatience grows. The sun beats down on me, causing beads of sweat to trickle down my forehead. I gaze longingly at the crowded store, itching to go inside. When someone mentions the word â€Å"apple,† the fruit is no longer the first thing that comes to mind. Millions have seen the iconic logo, and the love of technology has become a universal value. I’ve been here a thousand times, each time better than the last, resulting with me always looking forward to the next visit. I look on as a boy, decked out in a baseball uniform, runs down the street, screaming for his parents to catch up as he rushes into the store. I witness an elderly couple leave, with a look of awe, wonder, and slight confusion on both of their faces, after their experience with the newest and most innovative technology. 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