A Raisin in the Sun: Act 1, Scene 1 Summary & Analysis

The curtain rises to reveal the Younger family’s living room in its modest home in Chicago’s Southside. It is seven-thirty and still “morning dark” inside the clean but cramped apartment. The “primary feature” of the room is its atmosphere of having accommodated “the living of too many people for too many years.” Although its furnishings were once chosen “with love and even hope,” an aura of “weariness has . . . won in this room.” As evidence of the apartment’s overcrowding, a young boy, Travis, sleeps on a “make-down bed” at center stage.

An alarm clock rings and Ruth enters. She crosses to the small window in the cramped kitchen area and raises the shade that covers the room’s sole source of natural light. A “dusky” light shines “feebly” into the apartment, and while Ruth begins preparing breakfast, she calls to her son Travis to wake up. After her calls are ignored, Ruth goes over to Travis and finally shakes him out of bed, sending him off to the hallway bathroom before one of the neighbor’s can occupy it.

Ruth’s husband Walter Lee enters from the bedroom, and almost immediately he mentions the “check” that the family is expecting the next day. Ruth answers impatiently that it’s too early to start discussing money, which sparks tension with her husband. While Ruth prepares breakfast, the couple continues bickering over yesterday’s late-night gathering that Walter held for his friends in his son’s makeshift “bedroom.” Walter dismisses his wife’s complaints by saying that “colored [women] . . . [is] some eeeevil people at eight o’clock in the morning.”

Travis returns from the bathroom and signals for his father to get inside before one of the neighbors beats him to it. Travis begins eating his breakfast and, like Walter, also asks his mother about the check that is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Travis reminds his mother that he is supposed to bring 50 cents to school this morning, to which Ruth answers that she “ain’t got no fifty cents” today. Travis persists in asking for the money and, exasperated, Ruth refuses and tells her son to be quiet. Angered by his mother’s resistance, Travis heads for the door, but before he can leave for school, Ruth gently teases him and asks for a good-bye kiss. Travis’ frustration fades, and mother and son embrace and reconcile.

Walter reenters and, hearing the tail end of the argument between his wife and son, gives Travis a dollar to take to school, which greatly angers Ruth. Walter’s defiance of Ruth’s decision provokes further conflict between husband and wife. In particular, Ruth criticizes Walter’s friend Willy Harris and his business schemes, the latest being a liquor store that Harris has asked Walter to invest in. Walter asks Ruth to try to persuade his mother, Lena, to use part of the coming check to invest in the store. Ruth resists the idea and tells Walter to “eat your eggs.” In response, Walter erupts, accusing his wife of hampering his dreams. Ruth “wearily” explains her indifference by telling Walter that he simply “never say nothing new.” Walter retorts, saying that “colored women . . . don’t understand about building their men up.”

Walter’s sister Beneatha enters from the stage-left bedroom in the midst of Walter and Ruth’s quarrel. As Ruth irons a massive pile of clothes, Walter badgers his sister about her decision to study medicine and the high cost of her schooling. Beneatha counters sharply and impatiently, and when Walter brings up the coming check, Beneatha quickly and decisively reminds Walter, “That money belongs to Mama.” Walter “bitterly” snaps back, pointing to Beneatha’s own hope that Mama will devote a portion of the check to her tuition. Walter tells Beneatha to “stop acting holy” and acknowledge the “sacrifices” that he and the rest of the family have made so that Beneatha can go to school. Beneatha, in a semi-mocking tone of gratitude, drops to her knees and cries, “Forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all!”

Walter goes on to suggest that his sister abandon her dream of becoming a doctor in favor of being “a nurse like other women,” or simply getting married. Beneatha responds by telling Walter, “Thee is mad, boy.” Following his argument with Beneatha, Walter “slams out of the house” on his way to work. However, a few moments later, Walter reenters, fumbling with his hat, and tells Ruth that he needs “some money for carfare,” having given his last cent to Travis earlier. Ruth gives the money to her husband and in a “teasing, but tenderly” manner says, “Here, take a taxi!”

Mama enters from her bedroom and asks Beneatha and Ruth about the argument with Walter that she just overheard. When Beneatha exits to go to the bathroom, Ruth reveals that the siblings’ argument had to do with “that money” that’s arriving in tomorrow’s check. Ruth asks Mama if she has decided what to do with the money and encourages her to consider investing in Walter’s liquor store venture, adding that African Americans need to “start gambling” on such ventures if they want to get ahead in life. Mama dismisses the idea, stating, “We ain’t no business people.” Mama asks Ruth about her sudden support for Walter’s investment scheme, to which Ruth answers that “something is happening” between the couple and that Walter “needs this chance” to restore his self-esteem and repair the rift in their marriage.

Studying Ruth’s tired face, Mama suggests that Ruth call in sick to work today, an idea that Ruth swiftly refuses, stating that the family “need[s] the money.” With the mention of money, the conversation promptly circles back to the anticipated check, which Mama reveals is a $10,000 insurance payment resulting from her husband’s recent death. Mama declares that some of the money must be set aside for Beneatha’s schooling. As for the remaining amount, Mama “tentatively” begins to tell Ruth of her and her late husband Big Walter’s deferred dream of buying a house. Mama suggests that she might use part of the insurance money as a down payment on a “little old two-story somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play.”

In a “reflective mood,” Mama smiles and reminisces about her marriage, stating that she and Big Walter only intended to stay in their current apartment for “no more than a year.” Growing sad at her “dissolved dream,” Mama recalls the loss of her baby Claude and the difficulties of her marriage, including Big Walter’s “wild” way with women. Mama states that, for all his faults, her husband “sure loved his children,” and he often said, “Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams – but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.”

Beneatha returns from the bathroom and angers Mama by “reciting the scriptures in vain” when she exclaims “Christ’s sakes” in response to a neighbor’s noisy vacuuming. Beneatha then mentions her after-school guitar lesson that evening, which provokes snide comments from Mama and Ruth, who proceed to rattle off the long list of Beneatha’s discarded – and expensive – hobbies. Beneatha defends her experimentation with different hobbies as part of her effort to “express” herself, which prompts “raucous laughter” from Mama and Ruth.

Mama then changes the subject to Beneatha’s love life, asking whom she will go on a date with tomorrow night. “With displeasure,” Beneatha says it will be George Murchison, a “rich” young man whom she condemns as “shallow.” Ruth disagrees with Beneatha’s dismissal of George, asking her, “What other qualities a man got to have” in addition to his wealth? Beneatha resists her sister-in-law’s advice, affirming that she first and foremost intends to become a doctor and only then will she consider whom to marry – that is, “If I ever get married.”

After recovering from the shock of Beneatha’s comment, Mama says that Beneatha will certainly fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor, “God willing.” Beneatha chafes at the mention of God, responding that divine will “doesn’t have a thing to do with it.” Beneatha continues, delivering a speech in which she coolly declares, “God is just one idea I don’t accept.” After absorbing the speech, Mama slowly crosses to Beneatha and “powerfully” slaps her, and then with “cool emotion” makes her repeat, “In my mother’s house there is still God.” Beneatha acquiesces and Mama exits. To Ruth, Beneatha calls Mama “a tyrant” before leaving for school.

Mama reenters and expresses her deep concern for her children, telling Ruth, “There’s something come down between me and them that don’t let us understand each other.” Tending to her struggling plant by the apartment’s tiny window, she continues to think aloud and, with her back to Ruth, fails to realize that her daughter-in-law is growing faint. At last Mama turns to find that Ruth has “slipped” to the floor in a faint.