Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: The play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was awonderful piece of writing. I'm a fourteen year old and I thinkthat the book is good for most ages but you need to be at least 12 to fully understand it. I read this book while reading To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. It was interesting to read those books at the same time to see the points of view of racism of both sides. I noticed something very similar in both books. The Black people are always very welcoming and polite to the white people. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was always willing to help Mayella Ewell with chores. In A Raisin in the Sun, when the man came from the welcoming committee, they were very polite to him and invited him into their home. Little did they know that they would be rejected even though they were very courteous. That happened in both books. In A Raisin in the Sun, it seemed like their race was holding them back from accomplishing their dreams. When Mama bought the house for her family, they were all brutally rejected by the community. This upset the family very much. Walter says, "Maybe---maybe I'll just get down on my black knees,Captain Mistuh, Bossman. A-hee-hee-hee! Yasssuh! Great White Father, just gi' ussen de money, fo' God's sake, and we's ain't gwine come out deh and dirty up yo' white folks neighborhood..." When he says this it is a very dramatic part of the play. It shows how white people are controlling so much that goes on. They can't live in a house they want to live in. It seems like the white people are perceived as some kind of royalty in the book. Like queens and kings, they are not anything special but were just born into the "right" family. Unlike royalty, it's not the name they inherit but the color of their skin. I think this book was a great book to read. It showed me that in America you didn't always have a fair chance and social mobility used to be a lost cause for African-Americans. All of the people who lived in that crummy apartment had a dream but because of their skin color, their dreams were shattered. Either they wouldn't be taken seriously, or not welcomed, or given no choice but to take a low paying job doing unskilled things. I thought it was a great book because it was so realistic. There was suspense and most of all it was a book that really made me think.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Recently, in my eighth grade English class, we read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. During our study of the 1930's in Alabama we were assigned to read another book by an African American author. I chose A Raisin the Sun because my mom recommended it. Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun written in 1959 is an intriguing, must read play. This play shows the strength of an African-American family's values and ability to stick together. They face many hard things that shock the reader and the audience including an accidental pregnancy. They battle against harsh prejudice and a system that attempts to keep them from having good opportunities to improve their life. Hansberry does a good job of intertwining family hardships with the individuality of each character. She develops each character personally and carries on his or her traits through out the entire book. The attitude she takes towards the great struggles of a Chicago family, Walter, Ruth, Mama, Beneatha and Travis Younger is convincing because of her tone and description. She shows that life for an African American person at this time is difficult and full of obstacles more challenging than the ones that white people faced. Although A Raisin in the Sun takes place 29 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, African American people are still treated with no respect and are limited in their rights. Both stories constantly demolish African-American families' dreams. Hansberry illustrates through her tone that the family life is rough and the Youngers' are eager for a big change. This action in the plot causes excitement and suspense. As a reader I constantly want the Younger family to over come their challenges and do well in the future. In the same way, In To Kill A Mockingbird I was always hoping that Tom Robinson would be freed. Although there are similarities in the way black people are treated in both books, Lorraine Hansberry as a black author develops her black characters more thoroughly than Harper Lee. Lorraine Hansberry leaves her white characters to roles that are minor. I like this play because it is realistic and shows how strong a family bond is no matter what comes between them. She really showed how the Youngers' were struggling financially but still managed to succeeded all of the obstacles in their way.
Rating:
Summary: The Survival of one Family
Review: "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry
A Black family is united in love and pride as they struggle to overcome poverty and harsh living condition."A Raisin in the Sun" shows the strength of a Black family; the values and ability to stick together. The Younger family were struggling financially but they still managed to succeed of the obstacles in their way.This play symbolizes "Endurance, Hope and Survival," and that no matter what a family has they could stay together and bond in love.
Rating:
Summary: A Raisin in the Sun
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Very moving.
Review: "A Raisin in the Sun" reads more like a novel than a play. With a multitude of dialogue, and lenient stage direction, you'll finish reading this play in no time at all. The characters are strong, liable, and intriguing. I'm not sure I'd want to see it performed, but it is poignant to read. I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Look At Racism
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good play about the lives of an African American family
Review: The play A Raisin in the Sun takes its title from a line from the classic poem by Langston Hughes that I is called "A Dream Deferred." Appropriately enough, the play focuses on the deferred dreams of the Younger family, an African American family living in Chicago sometime after World War II. The family consists of Mama, Walter Lee Younger, his wife Ruth, his son Travis, and his sister Berneath. The whole family lives together in a small apartment. It is long been Mama dream to move into a house and she could finally make this a reality with the aid of insurance money from her deceased husband's policy. Walter Lee, however, wants to use the money to open up a liquor store because he is tired of working as an unrespected chauffer. Berneath--a college student--dreams of becoming a doctor and believes that some of the money should go to her schooling. Thus, although each family member believes that the money will fullfill their dreams, it actually just causes more conflicts. The ultimate theme of the play is that money itself cannot make your dreams come true. Dreams must be worked on in order for them to come true. Eventhough some dreams may never be realized, they never truely "die." Instead, they allows remain in the back of your mind ever if they will never actually be realized.I found this play an enjoyable and quick read. To me, it was more appealing than plays of August Wilson, who wrote plays of a similar theme (Fences, The Piano Lesson). One good thing about the play is that although the Youngers are a black family, the theme of the play seems appealing to any audience since many families have had money problems and even more families have had dreams about life that they have struggled to fulfill.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice for society to reflect...
Review: This play helps to remind all people where we came from and gives us more reason to appreciate where we are. Beautifully written, and heartfelt. I love the independence and strength of the female characters, especially Mama. I applaud Beneatha's need for more, and Ruth's strength to deal with her husband and any misfortune that is thrown her way. Truly a movable classic. I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: Very moving.
Review: "A Raisin in the Sun" reads more like a novel than a play. With a multitude of dialogue, and lenient stage direction, you'll finish reading this play in no time at all. The characters are strong, liable, and intriguing. I'm not sure I'd want to see it performed, but it is poignant to read. I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: The Survival of one Family
Review: "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry
A Black family is united in love and pride as they struggle to overcome poverty and harsh living condition."A Raisin in the Sun" shows the strength of a Black family; the values and ability to stick together. The Younger family were struggling financially but they still managed to succeed of the obstacles in their way.This play symbolizes "Endurance, Hope and Survival," and that no matter what a family has they could stay together and bond in love.
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