Read A Raisin in the Sun Online
Authors: Lorraine Hansberry
The action of the play is set
in Chicago’s Southside, sometime between
World War II and the present.
Act I
Scene One: Friday morning.
Scene Two: The following morning.
Act II
Scene One: Later, the same day.
Scene Two: Friday night, a few weeks later.
Scene Three: Moving day, one week later.
Act III
An hour later.
The
YOUNGER
living room would be a comfortable and well-ordered room if it were not for a number of indestructible contradictions to this state of being. Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years—and they are tired. Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family (except perhaps for MAMA), the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope—and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride
.
That was a long time ago. Now the once loved pattern of the couch upholstery has to fight to show itself from under acres of crocheted doilies and couch covers which have themselves finally come to be more important than the upholstery. And here a table or a chair has been moved to disguise the worn places in the carpet; but the carpet has fought back by showing its weariness, with depressing uniformity, elsewhere on its surface
.
Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too
often. All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished from the very atmosphere of this room
.
Moreover, a section of this room, for it is not really a room unto itself, though the landlord’s lease would make it seem so, slopes backward to provide a small kitchen area, where the family prepares the meals that are eaten in the living room proper, which must also serve as dining room. The single window that has been provided for these “two” rooms is located in this kitchen area. The sole natural light the family may enjoy in the course of a day is only that which fights its way through this little window
.
At left, a door leads to a bedroom which is shared by
MAMA
and her daughter
,
BENEATHA
.
At right, opposite, is a second room (which in the beginning of the life of this apartment was probably a breakfast room) which serves as a bedroom for
WALTER
and his wife
,
RUTH
.
Time: Sometime between World War II and the present
.
Place: Chicago’s Southside
.
At Rise: It is morning dark in the living room
,
TRAVIS
is asleep on the make-down bed at center. An alarm clock sounds from within the bedroom at right, and presently
RUTH
enters from that room and closes the door behind her. She crosses sleepily toward the window. As she passes her sleeping son she reaches down and shakes him a little. At the window she raises the shade and a dusky Southside morning light comes in feebly. She fills a pot with water and puts it on to boil. She calls to the boy, between yawns, in a slightly muffled voice
.
RUTH
is about thirty. We can see that she was a pretty girl, even exceptionally so, but now it is apparent that life has been little that she expected, and disappointment has already begun to hang in her face. In a few years, before thirty-five even, she will be known among her people as a “settled woman.”
She crosses to her son and gives him a good, final, rousing shake
.
RUTH
Come on now, boy, it’s seven thirty! (
Her son sits up at last, in a stupor of sleepiness
) I say hurry up, Travis! You ain’t the only person in the world got to use a bathroom! (
The child, a sturdy, handsome little boy of ten or eleven, drags himself out of the bed and almost blindly takes his towels and “today’s clothes” from drawers and a closet and goes out to the bathroom, which is in an outside hall and which is shared by another family or families on the same floor
,
RUTH
crosses to the bedroom door at right and opens it and calls in to her husband
) Walter Lee! … It’s after seven thirty! Lemme see you do some waking up in there now! (
She waits
) You better get up from there, man! It’s after seven thirty I tell you. (
She waits again
) All right, you just go ahead and lay there and next thing you know Travis be finished and Mr. Johnson’ll be in there and you’ll be fussing and cussing round here like a madman! And be late too! (
She waits, at the end of patience
) Walter Lee—it’s time for you to GET UP!
(
She waits another second and then starts to go into the bedroom, but is apparently satisfied that her husband has begun to get up. She stops, pulls the door to, and returns to the kitchen area. She wipes her face with a moist cloth and runs her fingers through her sleep-disheveled hair in a vain effort and ties an apron around her housecoat. The bedroom door at right opens and her husband stands in the doorway in his pajamas, which are rumpled and mismated. 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
)
WALTER
Is he out yet?
RUTH
What you mean
out?
He ain’t hardly got in there good yet.
WALTER
(
Wandering in, still more oriented to sleep than to a new day
) Well, what was you doing all that yelling for if I can’t even get in there yet? (
Stopping and thinking
) Check coming today?
RUTH
They
said
Saturday and this is just Friday and I hopes to God you ain’t going to get up here first thing this morning and start talking to me ’bout no money—’cause I ’bout don’t want to hear it.
WALTER
Something the matter with you this morning?
RUTH
No—I’m just sleepy as the devil. What kind of eggs you want?
WALTER
Not scrambled, (
RUTH
starts to scramble eggs
) Paper come? (
RUTH
points impatiently to the rolled up
Tribune
on the table, and he gets it and spreads it out and vaguely reads the front page
) Set off another bomb yesterday.
RUTH
(
Maximum indifference
) Did they?
WALTER
(
Looking up
) What’s the matter with you?
RUTH
Ain’t nothing the matter with me. And don’t keep asking me that this morning.
WALTER
Ain’t nobody bothering you. (
Reading the news of the day absently again
) Say Colonel McCormick is sick.
RUTH
(
Affecting tea-party interest
) Is he now? Poor thing.
WALTER
(
Sighing and looking at his watch
) Oh, me. (
He waits
) Now what is that boy doing in that bathroom all this time? He just going to have to start getting up earlier. I can’t be being late to work on account of him fooling around in there.
RUTH
(
Turning on him
) Oh, no he ain’t going to be getting up no earlier no such thing! It ain’t his fault that
he can’t get to bed no earlier nights ’cause he got a bunch of crazy good-for-nothing clowns sitting up running their mouths in what is supposed to be his bedroom after ten o’clock at night …
WALTER
That’s what you mad about, ain’t it? The things I want to talk about with my friends just couldn’t be important in your mind, could they?
(
He rises and finds a cigarette in her handbag on the table and crosses to the little window and looks out, smoking and deeply enjoying this first one
)
RUTH
(
Almost matter of factly, a complaint too automatic to deserve emphasis
) Why you always got to smoke before you eat in the morning?
WALTER
(
At the window
) Just look at ’em down there … Running and racing to work … (
He turns and faces his wife and watches her a moment at the stove, and then, suddenly
) You look young this morning, baby.
RUTH
(
Indifferently
) Yeah?
WALTER
Just for a second—stirring them eggs. Just for a second it was—you looked real young again. (
He reaches for her; she crosses away. Then, drily
) It’s gone now—you look like yourself again!
RUTH
Man, if you don’t shut up and leave me alone.
WALTER
(
Looking out to the street again
) First thing a man ought to learn in life is not to make love to no colored woman first thing in the morning. You all some eeeevil people at eight o’clock in the morning.
(
TRAVIS
appears in the hall doorway, almost fully dressed and quite wide awake now, his towels and pajamas across his shoulders. He opens the door and signals for his father to make the bathroom in a hurry
)
TRAVIS
(
Watching the bathroom
) Daddy, come on!
(
WALTER
gets his bathroom utensils and flies out to the bathroom
)
RUTH
Sit down and have your breakfast, Travis.
TRAVIS
Mama, this is Friday. (
Gleefully
) Check coming tomorrow, huh?
RUTH
You get your mind off money and eat your breakfast.
TRAVIS
(
Eating
) This is the morning we supposed to bring the fifty cents to school.
RUTH
Well, I ain’t got no fifty cents this morning.
TRAVIS
Teacher say we have to.
RUTH
I don’t care what teacher say. I ain’t got it. Eat your breakfast, Travis.
TRAVIS
I
am
eating.
RUTH
Hush up now and just eat!
(
The boy gives her an exasperated look for her lack of understanding, and eats grudgingly
)
TRAVIS
You think Grandmama would have it?
RUTH
No! And I want you to stop asking your grandmother for money, you hear me?
TRAVIS
(
Outraged
) Gaaaleee! I don’t ask her, she just gimme it sometimes!
RUTH
Travis Willard Younger—I got too much on me this morning to be—
TRAVIS
Maybe Daddy—
RUTH
Travis!
(
The boy hushes abruptly. They are both quiet and tense for several seconds
)
TRAVIS
(
Presently
) Could I maybe go carry some groceries in front of the supermarket for a little while after school then?
RUTH
Just hush, I said. (
Travis jabs his spoon into his cereal bowl viciously, and rests his head in anger upon his fists
) If you through eating, you can get over there and make up your bed.
(
The boy obeys stiffly and crosses the room, almost mechanically, to the bed and more or less folds the bedding into a heap, then angrily gets his books and cap
)
TRAVIS
(
Sulking and standing apart from her unnaturally
) I’m gone.
RUTH
(
Looking up from the stove to inspect him automatically
) Come here. (
He crosses to her and she studies his head
) If you don’t take this comb and fix this here head, you better! (
TRAVIS
puts down his books with a great sigh of oppression, and crosses to the mirror. His mother mutters under her breath about his “slubbornness”
) ’Bout to march out of here with that head looking just like chickens slept in it! I just don’t know where you get your slubborn ways … And get your jacket, too. Looks chilly out this morning.
TRAVIS
(
With conspicuously brushed hair and jacket
) I’m gone.
RUTH
Get carfare and milk money—(
Waving one finger
)—and not a single penny for no caps, you hear me?
TRAVIS
(
With sullen politeness
) Yes’m.
(
He turns in outrage to leave. His mother watches after him as in his frustration he approaches the door almost comically. When she speaks to him, her voice has become a very gentle tease
)
RUTH
(
Mocking; as she thinks he would say it
) Oh, Mama makes me so mad sometimes, I don’t know
what to do! (
She waits and continues to his back as he stands stock-still in front of the door
) I wouldn’t kiss that woman good-bye for nothing in this world this morning! (
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
) Not for nothing in this world! (
She finally laughs aloud at him and holds out her arms to him and we see that it is a way between them, very old and practiced. He crosses to her and allows her to embrace him warmly but keeps his face fixed with masculine rigidity. She holds him back from her presently and looks at him and runs her fingers over the features of his face. With utter gentleness—
) Now—whose little old angry man are you?
TRAVIS
(
The masculinity and gruffness start to fade at last
) Aw gaalee—Mama …
RUTH
(
Mimicking
) Aw gaaaaalleeeee, Mama! (
She pushes him, with rough playfulness and finality, toward the door
) Get on out of here or you going to be late.
TRAVIS
(
In the face of love, new aggressiveness
) Mama, could I
please
go carry groceries?
RUTH
Honey, it’s starting to get so cold evenings.
WALTER
(
Coming in from the bathroom and drawing a make-believe gun from a make-believe holster and shooting at his son
) What is it he wants to do?
RUTH
Go carry groceries after school at the supermarket.
WALTER
Well, let him go …
TRAVIS
(
Quickly, to the ally
) I
have
to—she won’t gimme the fifty cents …
WALTER
(
To his wife only
) Why not?
RUTH
(
Simply, and with flavor
) ’Cause we don’t have it.
WALTER
(
To
RUTH
only
) What you tell the boy things like that for? (
Reaching down into his pants with a rather important gesture
) Here, son—