A Raisin in the Sun: Act I

He is a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties, inclined to quick nervous movements and erratic speech habits and always in his voice there is a quality of indictment.

He is a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties, inclined to quick nervous movements and erratic speech habits and always in his voice there is a quality of indictment.

RUTH: (Maximum indifference) Did they?

The boy finally turns around and rolls his eyes at her, knowing the mood has changed and he is vindicated; he does not, however, move toward her yet.

Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family's insofar as education has permeated her sense of English and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally at last won out in her inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside.

Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family's insofar as education has permeated her sense of English and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally at last won out in her inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside.

She crosses through the room, goes to the window, opens it, and brings in a feeble little plant growing doggedly in a small pot on the window sill.

She waits several seconds, trying to make up her mind about something, and looks at RUTH a little tentatively before going on.

RUTH: (Studying her mother-in-law furtively and concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage without seeming to) Well, Lord knows, we've put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now.

MAMA and RUTH look at each other and burst into raucous laughter.

TRAVIS: (Safely behind the bastion of MAMA) That's right—look out, now!

BENEATHA: (With incredulity) You — you sent all the way home for me?

It's how you can be sure that the world's most liberated women are not liberated at all. You all talk about it too much!

She holds the check away from her, still looking at it. Slowly her face sobers into a mask of unhappiness.

RUTH turns to her, with kind exasperation.