Read A Raisin in the Sun Online
Authors: Lorraine Hansberry
(
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!
Curtain
*
This character and the scene of her visit were cut from the original production and early editions of the play.
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
Y
OU
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—!
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.
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!