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Summary: Act 1: Scene 1. It is morning at the Youngers’ apartment. Their small dwelling on the South Side of Chicago has two bedrooms—one for Mama and Beneatha, and one for Ruth and Walter Lee. Travis sleeps on the couch in the living room. The only window is in their small kitchen, and they share a bathroom in the hall with their neighbors.
- Setting
- Act One, Scene One
- Plot Points
- Famiy Ties
- "In My Mother's House There Is Still God"
A Raisin in the Suntakes place during the late 1950s. Act One is set in the crowded apartment of the Younger Family, an African-American family comprised of Mama (early 60s), her son Walter (mid-30s), her daughter-in-law Ruth (early 30s), her intellectual daughter Beneatha (early 20s), and her grandson Travis (age 10 or 11). In her stage directions...
The play begins with the Younger family's early morning ritual, a fatigued routine of waking up and preparing for the working day. Ruth wakes up her son, Travis. Then, she wakes up her groggy husband, Walter. He is obviously not thrilled to awaken and begin another dismal day working as a chauffeur. Tension boils between the husband and wife charac...
The Younger family has been waiting for an insurance check to arrive. The check promises to be ten-thousand dollars, made out to the matriarch of the family, Lena Young (usually known as "Mama"). Her husband passed away after a life of struggle and disappointment, and now the check in some ways symbolizes his last gift to his family. Walter wants t...
After Travis and Walter have left the apartment, Mama enters. Lena Younger is soft spoken most of the time, but not afraid to raise her voice. Hopeful for her family's future, she believes in traditional Christian values. She often does not understand how Walter is so fixated on money. Mama and Ruth have a delicate friendship based upon mutual resp...
Beneatha re-enters the scene. Ruth and Mama chide Beneatha because she has been "flitting" from one interest to the next: guitar lesson, drama class, horse-back riding. They also poke fun at Beneatha's resistance toward a rich young man (George) whom she has been dating. Beneatha wants to focus on becoming a doctor before she even considers marriag...
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A Raisin in the Sun Full Play Summary. A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, a Black family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. When the play opens, the Youngers are about to receive an insurance check for $10,000. This money comes from the deceased Mr. Younger’s life insurance policy.
- Lorraine Hansberry
- 1959
While waiting for Travis, Mama asks Ruth about her visit to the doctor, and Ruth’s use of the pronoun “she” to refer to the doctor makes Mama “immediately suspicious.”. Travis enters and breathlessly describes how he and his friends chased and killed a rat in the street. Travis’ story brings his dispirited mother to tears.
Summary and Analysis Act I — Scene 1. Summary. The Younger family lives in a cramped, "furniture crowded" apartment that is clearly too small for its five occupants in one of the poorer sections of Southside Chicago. Walter Lee wants to invest Mama's $10,000 insurance check in a liquor store venture with two of his friends.
Ruth Younger. Ruth joined the Younger family when she married Walter, and from the play’s opening moments it is clear that her day-to-day life in the Younger household has exhausted her utterly. Despite her pregnancy, Ruth does strenuous domestic work in white homes and plays a key part in keeping the entire Younger family functioning.
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.”.
