With Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, each person has a chance to go back to the 1950s and step into the compact apartment of the Younger household on the south side of the Windy City, where dreams of this struggling African American family hang like ripe fruits on a vine, ready to either flourish or dry out. This story represents the struggle against racism, abortion, poverty, alcohol abuse, and sexism all in one, while also making it extremely easy for the readers to understand in the form of a story of an average American family from the Midwest. 

The play revolves around the Younger family that consists of Mama, the head of the household; Walter Lee, her son; Beneatha, Mama’s daughter; Ruth, Walter’s wife; and Travis, the son of Walter and Ruth. Interestingly, the play is set during the span of a couple of days, which makes it even more fascinating how Hansberry involves all those themes in such a small event. 

The main theme of this play, however, is hopes and dreams of not only the working class, but the African American working class. This detail is significant because the story is set at the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the time when African Americans just started to slowly gain more rights and equality. The Younger family being African American, struggles greatly financially. They live in a cramped apartment that seems lifeless. Walter works as a chauffeur and drinks a bit too much at times. The rest of the family is unemployed. Beneatha goes to college and wants to become a doctor, which Walter thinks is silly considering how much money it costs to go to med school. Everything revolves around money in Walter’s eyes. Money is equal to happiness in his eyes, while the rest of the family is less materialistic, especially Mama who values the relationship with god and the unity of her family over anything. This difference in perspectives is where the main conflict of the book happens. 

Mama receives a check for $10,000 passed down from her husband. Walter, having a dream to invest in a liquor store to get his family out of poverty, jumps at this opportunity and tries to get the money for the investment since the only thing that was stopping him from investing earlier was the lack of funds. Mama, believing that selling liquor is against their religious beliefs, refuses to give Walter the money. Moreover, the rest of the family also thinks it’s very risky because Walter has lost money on such things before. Walter grows furious at this refusal and blames his family for never believing in him. Walter’s dream is like a fresh grape trying to prosper and turn into fine wine, but the conditions, the society, the poverty around is drying his dreams and hopes down, turning them into a worthless raisin. There’s another symbol in the book that represents the hopes and dreams of Walter and his family: Mama’s plant. The plant tries so hard to grow taller and taller, but with only one little window in the apartment, it can’t physically get enough light to prosper. The same goes for the attempts of the Younger family to crawl out of poverty. 

After reading this book, I went to work in Brooklyn on Sunday like usual. However, when walking through the busy streets of downtown Brooklyn, I looked very differently at the lives of the people there this time because of Hansberry's play. It was like I could see the scenes from the play right in front of my eyes. Now I started to notice the tiny windows of the doom apartment buildings and the hundreds of families walking through the busy streets to find their way out of this lifestyle and not let their grapes dry out like a raisin in the sun. 

In conclusion, A Raisin in the Sun is a phenomenal piece written by a revolutionary author who truly tried to make a difference in the world during the Civil Rights Movement, a time when people needed works like this to inspire them to keep fighting. I recommend this to people of different ages and of different status because regardless of who you are, you will always have a grape that you won’t want to dry out. Though it’s set in the previous century, A Raisin in the Sun still applies to today’s world. While reading the play was an unforgettable experience, the new perspective on the world is even more fascinating for me.