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Copy of Raisin in the Sun 9/30 (6/23/2025)

Last updated 6 months ago
18 questions
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?
131 MAMA Listen to me, now. I say I been wrong, son. That I been doing to you what the rest of the world been doing to you. (She turns off the radio) Walter—(She stops and he looks up slowly at her and she meets his eyes pleadingly) What you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing, ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. There ain’t nothing as precious to me … There ain’t nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else—if it means—if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. (She takes an envelope out of her handbag and puts it in front of him and he watches her without speaking or moving) I paid the man thirty-five hundred dollars down on the house. That leaves sixty-five hundred dollars. Monday morning I want you to take this money and take three thousand dollars and put it in a savings account for Beneatha’s medical schooling. The rest you put in a checking account—with your name on it. And from now on any penny that come out of it or that go in it is for you to look after. For you to decide. (She drops her hands a little helplessly) It ain’t much, but it’s all I got in the world and I’m putting it in your hands. I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.
1
Mama gave Walter specific instructions on what he should do with the money. Drag two chioces that best match Mama's instructions. _____________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
Other Answer Choices:
Put $6500 in a savings account until Mama gives him further instructions
Open a savings account for his family
Put $3500 in a checking account and manage that money himself.
Open a checking account for Beneatha
Put $3000 aside for Beneatha's schooling
BENEATHA That couldn’t be the movers … it’s not hardly two good yet—
(BENEATHA goes into her room. MAMA starts for door)
WALTER (Turning, stiffening) Wait—wait—I’ll get it.
(He stands and looks at the door)
MAMA You expecting company, son?
WALTER (Just looking at the door) Yeah—yeah …
(MAMA looks at RUTH, and they exchange innocent and unfrightened glances)
MAMA (Not understanding) Well, let them in, son.
BENEATHA (From her room) We need some more string.
MAMA Travis—you run to the hardware and get me some string cord.
(MAMA goes out and WALTER turns and looks at RUTH. TRAVIS goes to a dish for money)
RUTH Why don’t you answer the door, man?
WALTER (Suddenly bounding across the floor to embrace her) ’Cause sometimes it hard to let the future begin!
(Stooping down in her face)
I got wings! You got wings!
All God’s children got wings!
(He crosses to the door and throws it open. Standing there is a very slight little man in a not too prosperous business suit and with haunted frightened eyes and a hat pulled down tightly, brim up, around his forehead. TRAVIS passes between the men and exits. WALTER leans deep in the man’s face, still in his jubilance)
When I get to heaven gonna put on my wings,
Gonna fly all over God’s heaven …
(The little man just stares at him)
Heaven—
(Suddenly he stops and looks past the little man into the empty hallway) Where’s Willy, man?
BOBO He ain’t with me.
WALTER (Not disturbed) Oh—come on in. You know my wife.
BOBO (Dumbly, taking off his hat) Yes—h’you, Miss Ruth.
RUTH (Quietly, a mood apart from her husband already, seeing BOBO) Hello, Bobo.
WALTER You right on time today … Right on time. That’s the way! (He slaps BOBO on his back) Sit down … lemme hear.
(RUTH stands stiffly and quietly in back of them, as though somehow she senses death, her eyes fixed on her husband)
BOBO (His frightened eyes on the floor, his hat in his hands) Could I please get a drink of water, before I tell you about it, Walter Lee?
(WALTER does not take his eyes off the man. RUTH goes blindly to the tap and gets a glass of water and brings it to BOBO)
WALTER There ain’t nothing wrong, is there?
BOBO Lemme tell you—
WALTER Man—didn’t nothing go wrong?
BOBO Lemme tell you—Walter Lee. (Looking at RUTH and talking to her more than to WALTER) You know how it was. I got to tell you how it was. I mean first I got to tell you how it was all the way … I mean about the money I put in, Walter Lee …
209 WALTER (With taut agitation now) What about the money you put in?
BOBO Well—it wasn’t much as we told you—me and Willy—(He stops) I’m sorry, Walter. I got a bad feeling about it. I got a real bad feeling about it …
WALTER Man, what you telling me about all this for? … Tell me what happened in Springfield …
BOBO Springfield.
RUTH (Like a dead woman) What was supposed to happen in Springfield?
BOBO (To her) This deal that me and Walter went into with Willy— Me and Willy was going to go down to Springfield and spread some money ’round so’s we wouldn’t have to wait so long for the liquor license … That’s what we were going to do. Everybody said that was the way you had to do, you understand, Miss Ruth?
WALTER Man—what happened down there?
BOBO (A pitiful man, near tears) I’m trying to tell you, Walter.
WALTER (Screaming at him suddenly) THEN TELL ME, GODDAMMIT … WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?
BOBO Man … I didn’t go to no Springfield, yesterday.
WALTER (Halted, life hanging in the moment) Why not?
BOBO (The long way, the hard way to tell) ’Cause I didn’t have no reasons to …
WALTER Man, what are you talking about!
BOBO I’m talking about the fact that when I got to the train station yesterday morning—eight o’clock like we planned … Man—Willy didn’t never show up.
WALTER Why … where was he … where is he?
BOBO That’s what I’m trying to tell you … I don’t know … I waited six hours … I called his house … and I waited … six hours … I waited in that train station six hours … (Breaking into tears) That was all the extra money I had in the world … (Looking up at WALTER with the tears running down his face) Man, Willy is gone.
WALTER Gone, what you mean Willy is gone? Gone where? You mean he went by himself. You mean he went off to Springfield by himself—to take care of getting the license—(Turns and looks anxiously at RUTH) You mean maybe he didn’t want too many people in on the business down there? (Looks to RUTH again, as before) You know Willy got his own ways. (Looks back to BOBO) Maybe you was late yesterday and he just went on down there without you. Maybe—maybe—he’s been callin’ you at home tryin’ to tell you what happened or something. Maybe—maybe—he just got sick. He’s somewhere—he’s got to be somewhere. We just got to find him—me and you got to find him. (Grabs BOBO senselessly by the collar and starts to shake him) We got to!
BOBO (In sudden angry, frightened agony) What’s the matter with you, Walter! When a cat take off with your money he don’t leave you no road maps!
WALTER (Turning madly, as though he is looking for WILLY in the very room) Willy! … Willy … don’t do it … Please don’t do it … Man, not with that money … Man, please, not with that money … Oh, God … Don’t let it be true … (He is wandering around, crying out for WILLY and looking for him or perhaps for help from God) Man … I trusted you … Man, I put my life in your hands … (He starts to crumple down on the floor as RUTH just covers her face in horror. MAMA opens the door and comes into the room, with BENEATHA behind her) Man … (He starts to pound the floor with his fists, sobbing wildly) THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF MY FATHER’S FLESH—
BOBO (Standing over him helplessly) I’m sorry, Walter … (Only WALTER’S sobs reply. BOBO puts on his hat) I had my life staked on this deal, too …
1

What did Walter do with the money?

1

Where is the money now?

WHAT DOES WALTER MEAN?
1
Who is he saying these words to?_______
1

Exactly what did Walter do?

1

Why did he do it?

1

Why does Walter us this metaphor? Explain his meaning.

THE REST OF THE FAMILY REACTS
227 WALTER (Turning madly, as though he is looking for WILLY in the very room) Willy! … Willy … don’t do it … Please don’t do it … Man, not with that money … Man, please, not with that money … Oh, God … Don’t let it be true … (He is wandering around, crying out for WILLY and looking for him or perhaps for help from God) Man … I trusted you … Man, I put my life in your hands … (He starts to crumple down on the floor as RUTH just covers her face in horror. MAMA opens the door and comes into the room, with BENEATHA behind her) Man … (He starts to pound the floor with his fists, sobbing wildly) THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF MY FATHER’S FLESH—
BOBO (Standing over him helplessly) I’m sorry, Walter … (Only WALTER’S sobs reply. BOBO puts on his hat) I had my life staked on this deal, too …
(He exits)
MAMA (To WALTER) Son—(She goes to him, bends down to him, talks to his bent head) Son … Is it gone? Son, I gave you sixty-five hundred dollars. Is it gone? All of it? Beneatha’s money too?
WALTER (Lifting his head slowly) Mama … I never … went to the bank at all …
MAMA (Not wanting to believe him) You mean … your sister’s school money … you used that too … Walter? …
WALTER Yessss! All of it … It’s all gone …
(There is total silence. RUTH stands with her face covered with her hands; BENEATHA leans forlornly against a wall, fingering a piece of red ribbon from the mother’s gift. MAMA stops and looks at her son without recognition and then, quite without thinking about it, starts to beat him senselessly in the face. BENEATHA goes to them and stops it)
BENEATHA Mama!
(MAMA stops and looks at both of her children and rises slowly and wanders vaguely, aimlessly away from them)
MAMA I seen … him … night after night … come in … and look at that rug … and then look at me … the red showing in his eyes … the veins moving in his head … I seen him grow thin and old before he was forty … working and working and working like somebody’s old horse … killing himself … and you —you give it all away in a day—(She raises her arms to strike him again)
BENEATHA Mama—
MAMA Oh, God … (She looks up to Him) Look down here—and show me the strength.
BENEATHA Mama—
MAMA (Folding over) Strength …
BENEATHA (Plaintively) Mama …
MAMA Strength!
245 Curtain
1

What is each character's reaction?

1
Pick a character: __________
1

What qualities does your character show through their reaction?

HOMEWORK
Act 2, Scene 3
227 WALTER (Turning madly, as though he is looking for WILLY in the very room) Willy! … Willy … don’t do it … Please don’t do it … Man, not with that money … Man, please, not with that money … Oh, God … Don’t let it be true … (He is wandering around, crying out for WILLY and looking for him or perhaps for help from God) Man … I trusted you … Man, I put my life in your hands … (He starts to crumple down on the floor as RUTH just covers her face in horror. MAMA opens the door and comes into the room, with BENEATHA behind her) Man … (He starts to pound the floor with his fists, sobbing wildly) THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF MY FATHER’S FLESH—

228 BOBO (Standing over him helplessly) I’m sorry, Walter … (Only WALTER’S sobs reply. BOBO puts on his hat) I had my life staked on this deal, too …

229 (He exits)

230 MAMA (To WALTER) Son—(She goes to him, bends down to him, talks to his bent head) Son … Is it gone? Son, I gave you sixty-five hundred dollars. Is it gone? All of it? Beneatha’s money too?

231 WALTER (Lifting his head slowly) Mama … I never … went to the bank at all …

232 MAMA (Not wanting to believe him) You mean … your sister’s school money … you used that too … Walter? …

233 WALTER Yessss! All of it … It’s all gone …

234 (There is total silence. RUTH stands with her face covered with her hands; BENEATHA leans forlornly against a wall, fingering a piece of red ribbon from the mother’s gift. MAMA stops and looks at her son without recognition and then, quite without thinking about it, starts to beat him senselessly in the face. BENEATHA goes to them and stops it)

235 BENEATHA Mama!

236 (MAMA stops and looks at both of her children and rises slowly and wanders vaguely, aimlessly away from them)

237 MAMA I seen … him … night after night … come in … and look at that rug … and then look at me … the red showing in his eyes … the veins moving in his head … I seen him grow thin and old before he was forty … working and working and working like somebody’s old horse … killing himself … and you —you give it all away in a day—(She raises her arms to strike him again)

238 BENEATHA Mama—

239 MAMA Oh, God … (She looks up to Him) Look down here—and show me the strength.

240 BENEATHA Mama—

241 MAMA (Folding over) Strength …

242 BENEATHA (Plaintively) Mama …

243 MAMA Strength!

245 Curtain
Required
1

What is the figurative meaning behind Walter's statement, "THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF MY FATHER'S FLESH--" (227)?

Required
1

Explain how Mama's words in line 237 support this idea.

ACT 3
An hour later.
At curtain, there is a sullen light of gloom in the living room, gray light not unlike that which began the first scene of Act One. At left we can see WALTER within his room, alone with himself. He is stretched out on the bed, his shirt out and open, his arms under his head. He does not smoke, he does not cry out, he merely lies there, looking up at the ceiling, much as if he were alone in the world.
In the living room BENEATHA sits at the table, still surrounded by the now almost ominous packing crates. She sits looking off. We feel that this is a mood struck perhaps an hour before, and it lingers now, full of the empty sound of profound disappointment. We see on a line from her brother’s bedroom the sameness of their attitudes. Presently the bell rings and BENEATHA rises without ambition or interest in answering. It is ASAGAI, smiling broadly, striding into the room with energy and happy expectation and conversation.
ASAGAI I came over … I had some free time. I thought I might help with the packing. Ah, I like the look of packing crates! A household in preparation for a journey! It depresses some people … but for me … it is another feeling. Something full of the flow of life, do you understand? Movement, progress … It makes me think of Africa.
BENEATHA Africa!
ASAGAI What kind of a mood is this? Have I told you how deeply you move me?
BENEATHA He gave away the money, Asagai …
ASAGAI Who gave away what money?
BENEATHA The insurance money. My brother gave it away.
ASAGAI Gave it away?
BENEATHA He made an investment! With a man even Travis wouldn’t have trusted with his most worn-out marbles.
ASAGAI And it’s gone?
BENEATHA Gone!
ASAGAI I’m very sorry … And you, now?
BENEATHA Me? … Me? … Me, I’m nothing … Me. When I was very small … we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day … and it was very dangerous, you know … far too steep … and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us … And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up … and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face … I never got over that …
ASAGAI What?
BENEATHA That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up—sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world … I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know—and make them whole again. This was truly being God…
ASAGAI You wanted to be God?
BENEATHA No—I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt …
ASAGAI And you’ve stopped caring?
BENEATHA Yes—I think so.
ASAGAI Why?
BENEATHA (Bitterly) Because it doesn’t seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind! It was a child’s way of seeing things—or an idealist’s.
ASAGAI Children see things very well sometimes—and idealists even better.
BENEATHA I know that’s what you think. Because you are still where I left off. You with all your talk and dreams about Africa! You still think you can patch up the world. Cure the Great Sore of Colonialism—(Loftily, mocking it) with the Penicillin of Independence—!
26 ASAGAI Yes!
BENEATHA Independence and then what? What about all the crooks and thieves and just plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before—only now they will be black and do it in the name of the new Independence—WHAT ABOUT THEM?!
ASAGAI That will be the problem for another time. First we must get there.
BENEATHA And where does it end?
ASAGAI End? Who even spoke of an end? To life? To living?
BENEATHA An end to misery! To stupidity! Don’t you see there isn’t any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us—our own little mirage that we think is the future.
ASAGAI That is the mistake.
BENEATHA What?
ASAGAI What you just said about the circle. It isn’t a circle—it is simply a long line—as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end—we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd but those who see the changes—who dream, who will not give up—are called idealists … and those who see only the circle we call them the “realists”!
BENEATHA Asagai, while I was sleeping in that bed in there, people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody consulted me—they just went out and changed my life!
ASAGAI Was it your money?
BENEATHA What?
ASAGAI Was it your money he gave away?
BENEATHA It belonged to all of us.
ASAGAI But did you earn it? Would you have had it at all if your father had not died?
BENEATHA No.
ASAGAI Then isn’t there something wrong in a house—in a world—where all dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man? I never thought to see you like this, Alaiyo. You! Your brother made a mistake and you are grateful to him so that now you can give up the ailing human race on account of it! You talk about what good is struggle, what good is anything! Where are we all going and why are we bothering!
BENEATHA AND YOU CANNOT ANSWER IT!
ASAGAI (Shouting over her) I LIVE THE ANSWER! (Pause) In my village at home it is the exceptional man who can even read a newspaper … or who ever sees a book at all. I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village. But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all … and then again the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and I will not wonder long. And perhaps … perhaps I will be a great man … I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course … and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of empire …
BENEATHA The martyr!
ASAGAI (He smiles) … or perhaps I shall live to be a very old man, respected and esteemed in my new nation … And perhaps I shall hold office and this is what I’m trying to tell you, Alaiyo: Perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don’t you see that there will be young men and women—not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen—to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don’t you see they have always been there … that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even … actually replenish all that I was.
BENEATHA Oh, Asagai, I know all that.
ASAGAI Good! Then stop moaning and groaning and tell me what you plan to do.
BENEATHA Do?
ASAGAI I have a bit of a suggestion.
BENEATHA What?
ASAGAI (Rather quietly for him) That when it is all over—that you come home with me—
BENEATHA (Staring at him and crossing away with exasperation) Oh—Asagai—at this moment you decide to be romantic!
ASAGAI (Quickly understanding the misunderstanding) My dear, young creature of the New World—I do not mean across the city—I mean across the ocean: home—to Africa.
55 BENEATHA (Slowly understanding and turning to him with murmured amazement) To Africa?
ASAGAI Yes! … (Smiling and lifting his arms playfully) Three hundred years later the African Prince rose up out of the seas and swept the maiden back across the middle passage over which her ancestors had come—
BENEATHA (Unable to play) To—to Nigeria?
ASAGAI Nigeria. Home. (Coming to her with genuine romantic flippancy) I will show you our mountains and our stars; and give you cool drinks from gourds and teach you the old songs and the ways of our people—and, in time, we will pretend that—(Very softly)—you have only been away for a day. Say that you’ll come (He swings her around and takes her full in his arms in a kiss which proceeds to passion)
BENEATHA (Pulling away suddenly) You’re getting me all mixed up—
ASAGAI Why?
BENEATHA Too many things—too many things have happened today. I must sit down and think. I don’t know what I feel about anything right this minute.
(She promptly sits down and props her chin on her fist)
ASAGAI (Charmed) All right, I shall leave you. No—don’t get up. (Touching her, gently, sweetly) Just sit awhile and think … Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. (He goes to door and looks at her) How often I have looked at you and said, “Ah—so this is what the New World hath finally wrought …”
(He exits. BENEATHA sits on alone. Presently WALTER enters from his room and starts to rummage through things, feverishly looking for something. She looks up and turns in her seat)
BENEATHA (Hissingly) Yes—just look at what the New World hath wrought! … Just look! (She gestures with bitter disgust) There he is! Monsieur le petit bourgeois noir—himself! There he is—Symbol of a Rising Class! Entrepreneur! Titan of the system! (WALTER ignores her completely and continues frantically and destructively looking for something and hurling things to floor and tearing things out of their place in his search. BENEATHA ignores the eccentricity of his actions and goes on with the monologue of insult) Did you dream of yachts on Lake Michigan, Brother? Did you see yourself on that Great Day sitting down at the Conference Table, surrounded by all the mighty bald-headed men in America? All halted, waiting, breathless, waiting for your pronouncements on industry? Waiting for you—Chairman of the Board! (WALTER finds what he is looking for—a small piece of white paper—and pushes it in his pocket and puts on his coat and rushes out without ever having looked at her. She shouts after him) I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world!
(The door slams and she returns to just sitting again. RUTH comes quickly out of MAMA’S room)
RUTH Who was that?
BENEATHA Your husband.
RUTH Where did he go?
BENEATHA Who knows—maybe he has an appointment at U.S. Steel.
RUTH (Anxiously, with frightened eyes) You didn’t say nothing bad to him, did you?
BENEATHA Bad? Say anything bad to him? No—I told him he was a sweet boy and full of dreams and everything is strictly peachy keen, as the ofay kids say!
(MAMA enters from her bedroom. She is lost, vague, trying to catch hold, to make some sense of her former command of the world, but it still eludes her. A sense of waste overwhelms her gait; a measure of apology rides on her shoulders. She goes to her plant, which has remained on the table, looks at it, picks it up and takes it to the windowsill and sits it outside, and she stands and looks at it a long moment. Then she closes the window, straightens her body with effort and turns around to her children)
MAMA Well—ain’t it a mess in here, though? (A false cheerfulness, a beginning of something) I guess we all better stop moping around and get some work done. All this unpacking and everything we got to do. (RUTH raises her head slowly in response to the sense of the line; and BENEATHA in similar manner turns very slowly to look at her mother) One of you all better call the moving people and tell ’em not to come.
RUTH Tell ’em not to come?
MAMA Of course, baby. Ain’t no need in ’em coming all the way here and having to go back. They charges for that too. (She sits down, fingers to her brow, thinking) Lord, ever since I was a little girl, I always remembers people saying, “Lena—Lena Eggleston, you aims too high all the time. You needs to slow down and see life a little more like it is. Just slow down some.” That’s what they always used to say down home—“Lord, that Lena Eggleston is a high-minded thing. She’ll get her due one day!”
RUTH No, Lena …
MAMA Me and Big Walter just didn’t never learn right.
RUTH Lena, no! We gotta go. Bennie—tell her … (She rises and crosses to BENEATHA with her arms outstretched, BENEATHA doesn’t respond) Tell her we can still move … the notes ain’t but a hundred and twenty-five a month. We got four grown people in this house—we can work …
80 MAMA (To herself) Just aimed too high all the time—
RUTH (Turning and going to MAMA fast—the words pouring out with urgency and desperation) Lena—I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago … I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to—but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!!
(MAMA reaches out absently and pats RUTH’S hand)
MAMA No—I sees things differently now. Been thinking ’bout some of the things we could do to fix this place up some. I seen a secondhand bureau over on Maxwell Street just the other day that could fit right there. (She points to where the new furniture might go. RUTH wanders away from her) Would need some new handles on it and then a little varnish and it look like something brand-new. And—we can put up them new curtains in the kitchen … Why this place be looking fine. Cheer us all up so that we forget trouble ever come … (To RUTH) And you could get some nice screens to put up in your room ’round the baby’s bassinet … (She looks at both of them, pleadingly) Sometimes you just got to know when to give up some things … and hold on to what you got.…
Required
1
The stage directions at the beginning of this passage describe the atmosphere as one of __________
Required
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PART 1: Beneatha compares Walter's foolishness in trusting Willy to __________
Required
1

PART 2: Why do you think Beneatha wanted to make that comparison?

Required
1

As she talks to Asagai, why does Beneatha have a change of heart about being a doctor?

Required
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Asagai talks about being an idealist, which he describes as someone who __________
Required
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Now that the money is gone, what has Mama decided to do? Do you agree or disagree with her decision?