A Raisin in the Sun: Act II

by Lorraine Hansberry
In the 1940s, a working class African-American family in Chicago must decide how to best spend a ten-thousand dollar insurance payout.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Act I, Act II, Act III
15 words 18748 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. scrutinize
    look at critically or searchingly, or in minute detail
    He scrutinizes MURCHISON again, drinks his beer, squints his eyes and leans in close, confidential, man to man.
  2. sociology
    the study and classification of human societies
    Filling up your heads (Counting off on his fingers) with the sociology and the psychology but they teaching you how to be a man?
  3. plaintively
    in a manner expressing sorrow
    RUTH: (Plaintively) Walter Lee — why don't we just try to talk about it...
  4. resignation
    acceptance of an unpleasant but inevitable situation
    She waits a long time, and then with resignation starts to put away her things.
  5. misgiving
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    RUTH: (Coming to him, gently and with misgiving, but coming to him) Honey...life don't have to be like this.
  6. exuberant
    joyously unrestrained
    And she builds with momentum as she starts to circle the room with an exuberant, almost tearfully happy release.
  7. rebuff
    reject outright and bluntly
    He starts to kiss her, she rebuffs him again and he jumps up.
  8. implication
    a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred
    JOHNSON: Ain't no... (The implication is pregnancy) sickness done hit you—I hope...?
  9. undaunted
    unshaken in purpose
    She waits. A beat. Undaunted.
  10. nonplussed
    filled with bewilderment
    JOHNSON: (Nonplussed) You know, me and you ain't never agreed about some things, Lena Younger. I guess I better be going.
  11. strident
    unpleasantly loud and harsh
    Before the curtain rises, RUTH'S voice, a strident, dramatic church alto, cuts through the silence.
  12. oblivious
    lacking conscious awareness of
    He stops short, struck dumb at the sight of the oblivious WALTER and RUTH.
  13. gall
    the trait of being rude and impertinent
    RUTH: Lord have mercy, ain't this the living gall!
  14. ludicrous
    broadly or extravagantly humorous
    She pops it on her head to prove it to her grandson, and the hat is ludicrous and considerably oversized.
  15. deference
    courteous regard for people's feelings
    They all laugh except MAMA, out of deference to TRAVIS'S feelings.
Created on Sat Feb 09 22:57:10 EST 2013 (updated Tue Jul 01 19:41:57 EDT 2025)

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