Although a few of the characters may seem a bit stereotypical, the play strikes me as surprisingly fresh after all these decades. It is also fascinating to hear the voices of three generations of a single family in this play. Ultimately, "Raisin" is a celebration of struggle, pride, and hope, in addition to being a historically important indictment of mid-20th century racism. This is essential reading for anybody with a serious interest in United States drama or African-American literature.


A Raisin in the Sun   May 15, 2000
 15 out of 18 found this review helpful

A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry ,is by far one of the best books have read yet. The setting is in the mid-1900's in the Southside of Chicago. The main focus of this book occurs around a poor black family in a poor black community, the Younger's. Hansberry does a great job of using dialect to make the scenes quite realistic and uses quite a bit of symbolism, irony, motifs, and situations that involve making decisions where you become stuck between a rock and a hard place. The book starts off with Walter Younger's obsession with his mother's insurance check so he can become a true entrepeneur and invest in his own liquor store. Since religion played a vital role in Mama's reaction to this sinful act it really damaged Walter's hopes and dreams. Later in the book Mama finally decides to give Walter the money and leaves him with the responsibility of taking care of the family, this is where the rising action begins. Then the climax hits when Walter finds out that the money he gave to his partner is gone. This leaves Walter and the rest of the family in a sudden feeling of disillusionment. Then as things cool down Walter and the rest of the family decide to go ahead and move into the all white neighborhood. The rest of the story is jam packed with racial, religious, economic, and even feministical motifs that aid in the release of all the true tensions in the novel, between characters, which Hansberry purposely relates to the reality of the way society really is. Her purpose for writing this book was to show the way society worked and to make it apparent how hard life was for a poor black family. Overall I really enjoyed this book. It had alot of realistic elements , enough to make the reader stay interested and more. The plot is dramatic and ends ironically. I gave this book 4 stars because it had all the elements of a good book it just did not have the ending I was expecting. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a easy reading book that contains alot of real life situations and the struggle of a poor black family just trying to "move on up", just like the Jefferson's just without all the funny jokes.


A Good Look At Racism   May 17, 2000
 14 out of 18 found this review helpful

All in all, this book was a lot better than I thought it would be. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is an excellent story about the events of a black family in Chicago. It was originally a play, so the entire book is set in script form. I enjoyed this form because the book contained more talking and less description, thus allowing the book to move along a lot faster. The main event which occurs in the book is when the family of 5 (grandmother, mother, father, son, aunt) recieve a check worth $10,000 from their grandfather's life insurance. The author conveys to the reader how each character reacts to the money and what they want to do with it. Hansberry also describes the world that the family lives in. Their world is racist, hard to succed in and full of hate. The world, along with Hansberry's excellent writing, is comparible to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. While I was reading A Raisin in the Sun, my eighth grade class was also studying To Kill a Mockingbird. I found myself constantly comparing these two books. In A Raisin in the Sun, the point of view is that of a black person, Hansberry. Because of her ethnicity and of the time she wrote the book, her point of view is different from Lee's. Hansberry believes that black people do not have any hope in a white man's world. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the point of view is that of a white person, Lee. Lee wrote this book during the 50's, about when the civil rights movement was really starting to get strong. Lee was in support of the blacks, so she wrote a book which showed hope for them. If To Kill a Mockingbird were written by a black person, the point of view would be completely different and the message would be that of A Raisin in the Sun. Both of these books are extremely good and well written. A Raisin in the Sun is a great book about racism from a black person's point of view. I enjoyed this book a lot, and I recommend it to everybody.