Mama’s hospitality is a reflection of the pride that she takes in her family and its treatment of others. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.". to learn how to play the guitar. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of A Raisin in the Sun and what it means. from your Reading List will also remove any

Beneatha’s hair is also tied to her identity as a woman and traditional – i.e., white – notions of feminine beauty. counter to their expectations of a woman’s role.

Mama, a traditionalist, senses from the fact that Ruth saw a woman doctor that Ruth may be thinking of doing something that perhaps a male, traditional doctor would not support—get an abortion. Mama’s recitation shows that she, while perhaps not as interested in her African heritage as Beneatha, is willing to make an effort in order to make her guest feel at home.

though their struggle to attain any semblance of it is dramatically not a single penny for no caps A popular children's toy in the fifties, especially for little boys, was the "cap pistol" or "cap gun, "into which "caps" were placed, producing the sound of a miniature firecracker, making the children feel as though they were actually firing a real pistol.

"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof."

she nurtures this dream even more powerfully. Ruth’s pregnancy is immediately coupled with economic concerns. which are two things Ruth feels she can no longer provide for Walter. One of the key focuses in this scene is Mama's concern for her family; it especially emphasizes her all-consuming love for her grandson, Travis, as she makes excuses for the careless way in which he made his bed, while re-doing it correctly for him. Although Beneatha takes interest in her African heritage, her straightened hair projects a message of assimilation, of “managing” her black attributes to make it easier to fit in, which Beneatha abhors. It is morning at the Youngers’ apartment. Mama, though, feels morally repulsed by the idea of getting into Beneatha Themes and Colors Key LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Raisin in the Sun, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

When the alarm clock rings, Ruth is the first one up, as though it is her responsibility to make certain that everyone else gets up and ready for the day ahead. Although

and tells Ruth that his teacher asked the students to bring fifty cents to school today. She tries to give Mrs. Johnson (Mrs. Wilhelmina Othella Johnson), Lorraine Hansberry's debt to Richard Wright can be noted in the similarities between Hansberry's Walter Lee and Wright's Bigger Thomas.

Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.

about a stereotypical suburban family)—but also desires to find

The Youngers’ Saturday morning ritual of cleaning the apartment shows the pride that the family takes in maintaining its home. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Ruth, Walter's wife, is so exhausted from overwork that she too is unsympathetic to Walter's obsession with the money.

my girl didn't come in today Ruth works as a domestic, a cleaning woman, for wealthy whites who have traditionally referred to these cleaning women as "girls" — a term that the domestics found degrading but never complained openly about for fear of losing their jobs.