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A RAISIN IN THE SUN
By: Lorraine Hansberry ACT III 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 sur- rounded 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 am- bition 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 pacjdng. Ah, I like the look of packing crates! A household in preparation for a jour- ney! It depresses some people... but for me ... it 131 (blank page) 132 A RAISIN IN THE SUN 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 A RAISIN IN THE SUN 133 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 You wanted to be God? BENEATHA No I wanted to cure. It used to be so im- portant 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 (Loft- ily, 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 134 A RAISIN IN THE SUN 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? A RAISIN IN THE SUN 135 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 sud- den dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have mo- ments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my vil- lage 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! 136 A RAISIN IN THE SUN 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 sol- diers 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
raises her head slowly in response to the sense of the line; and BENEATHA in similar manner turns very slowly to look at her mother} One of you all better call the moving people and tell 'em not to come. RUTH Tell 'em not to come? MAMA Of course, baby. Ain't no need in 'em coming all the way here and having to go back. They charges for that too. (She sits down, fingers to her brow, thinking) Lord, ever since I was a little girl, I always remembers people saying, "Lena Lena Eggleston, you aims too high all the time. You needs to slow down and see life a little more like it is. Just slow down some." That's what they always used to say down home "Lord, that Lena Eggleston is a high-minded thing. She'll get her due one day!" RUTH No, Lena ... MAMA Me and Big Walter just didn't never learn right. RUTH Lena, no! We gotta go. Bennie tell her ... (She rises and crosses to BENEATHA with her arms out- stretched. BENEATHA doesn't respond) Tell her we 140 A RAISIN IN THE SUN can still move... the notes ain't but a hundred and twenty-five a month. We got four grown people in this house we can work MAMA (To herself) Just aimed too high all the time RUTH (Turning and going to MAMA fast the words pour- ing out with urgency and desperation) Lena Til work
... I'll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago ,.. Fll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!! (MAMA reaches out absently and pats RUTH'S hand) MAMA No I sees things differently now. Been thinking 'bout some of the things we could do to fix this place up some. I seen a second-hand bureau over on Maxwell Street just the other day that could fit right there. (She points to where the new furniture might go. RUTH wanders away from her) Would need some new handles on it and then a little varnish and it look like something brand-new. And we can put up them new curtains in the kitchen... Why this place be looking fine. Cheer us all up so that we forget trouble ever come... (To RUTH) And you could get some nice screens to put up in your room round the baby's bassinet.. * (She looks at both of them, pleadingly) Sometimes you just got to know when to give up some things... and hold on to what you got.... (WALTER enters from the outside, looking spent and leaning against the door, his coat hanging from him) MAMA Where you been, son? WALTER (Breathing hard) Made a call A RAISIN IN THE SUN 141 MAMA To who, son? WALTER To The Man. (He heads for his room) MAMA What man, baby? WALTER (Stops in the door) The Man, Mama. Don't you know who The Man is? RUTH Walter Lee? WALTER The Man. Like the guys in the streets say The Man. Captain Boss Mistuh Charley... Old Cap'n Please Mr. Bossman... BENEATHA (Suddenly) Lindner! WALTER That's right! That's good. I told him to come right over. BENEATHA (Fiercely, understanding) For what? What do you want to see him for! WALTER (Looking at his sister) We going to do busi- ness with him. MAMA What you talking 'bout, son? WALTER Talking 'bout life, Mama. You all always tell- ing me to see life like it is. Well I laid in there on my back today... and I figured it out. Life just like it is. Who gets and who don't get. (He sits down with his coat on and laughs) Mama, you know it's all divided up. Life is. Sure enough. Between the takers and the "tooken." (He laughs) I've figured it out finally. (He looks around at them) Yeah. Some of us always getting "tooken." (He laughs) People like Willy Harris, they don't never get "tooken." And you know why the rest of us do? 'Cause we all mixed up. Mixed up bad. We get to looking 'round for the right and the wrong; and we worry about it and cry about it and stay up nights 142 A RAISIN IN THE SUN trying to figure out 'bout the wrong and the right of things all the time... And all the time, man, them takers is out there operating, just taking and taking. Willy Harris? Shoot Willy Harris don't even count. He don't even count in the big scheme of things. But
I'll say one thing for old Willy Harris... he's taught me something. He's taught me to keep my eye on what counts in this world. Yeah (Shouting out a little) Thanks, Willy! RUTH What did you call that man for, Walter Lee? WALTER Called him to tell him to come on over to the show. Gonna put on a show for the man. Just what he wants to see. You see, Mama, the man came here today and he told us that them people out there where you want us to move well they so upset they willing to pay us not to move! (He laughs again) And and oh, Mama you would of been proud of the way me and Ruth and Bennie acted. We told him to get out... Lord have mercy! We told the man to get out! Oh, we was some proud folks this afternoon, yeah. (He lights a cigarette) We were still full of that old-time stuff... RUTH {Coming toward him slowly) You talking 'bout taking them people's money to keep us from moving in that house? WALTER I ain't just talking 'bout it, baby I'm telling you that's what's going to happen! BENEATHA Oh, God! Where is the bottom! Where is the real honest-to-God bottom so he can't go any farther! WALTER See that's the old stuff. You and that boy that was here today. You all want everybody to carry a flag and a spear and sing some marching songs, huh? You wanna spend your life looking into things and try- ing to find the right and the wrong part, huh? Yeah. You know what's going to happen to that boy someday A RAISIN IN THE SUN 143 he'll find himself sitting in a dungeon, locked in forever and the takers will have the key! Forget it, baby! There ain't no causes there ain't nothing but taking in this world, and he who takes most is smartest and it don't make a damn bit of difference how. MAMA You making something inside me cry, son. Some awful pain inside me. WALTER Don't cry, Mama. Understand. That white man is going to walk in that door able to write checks for more money than we ever had. It's important to him and I'm going to help him... I'm going to put on the show, Mama. MAMA Son I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers but ain't nobody in my family never let nobody pay 'em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn't fit to walk the earth. We ain't never been that poor. (Raising her eyes and looking at him) We ain't never been that dead inside. BENEATHA Well we are dead now. All the talk about dreams and sunlight that goes on in this house. It's all dead now. WALTER What's the matter with you all! I didn't make this world! It was give to me this way! Hell, yes, I want me some yachts someday! Yes, I want to hang some real pearls 'round my wife's neck. Ain't she sup- posed to wear no pearls? Somebody tell me tell me, who decides which women is suppose to wear pearls in this world. I tell you I am a man and I think my wife should wear some pearls in this world! (This last line hangs a good while and WALTER begins to move about the room. The word "Man" has penetrated his consciousness; he mumbles it to himself repeatedly between strange agitated pauses as he moves about) 144 A RAISIN IN THE SUN MAMA Baby, how you going to feel on the inside? WALTER Fine!... Going to feel fine. ,. a man... MAMA You won't have nothing left then, Walter Lee. WALTER (Coming to her) I'm going to feel fine, Mama. I'm going to look that son-of-a-bitch in the eyes and say (He falters) and say, "All right, Mr. Lindner (He falters even more) that's your neighborhood out there! You got the right to keep it like you want! You got the right to have it like you want! Just write the check and the house is yours." And and I am going to say (His voice almost breaks) "And you you people just put the money in my hand and you won't have to live next to this bunch of stinking niggers!.. ." (He straightens up and moves away from his mother, walking around the room) And maybe maybe I'll just get down on my black knees... (He does so; RUTH and BENNIE and MAMA watch him in frozen horror) "Cap- tain, Mistuh, Bossman (Groveling and grinning and wringing his hands in profoundly anguished imitation of the slow-witted movie stereotype) A-hee-hee-hee! Oh, yassuh boss! Yasssssuh! Great white (Voice breaking, he forces himself to go on) Father, just gi' ussen de money, fo' God's sake, and we's we's ain't gwine come out deh and dirty up yo* white folks neighborhood.. ." (He breaks down completely) And I'll feel fine! Fine! FINE! (He gets up and goes into the bedroom) BENEATHA That is not a man. That is nothing but a tooth- less rat. MAMA Yes death done come in this here house. (She is nodding, slowly, reflectively) Done come walking in my house on the lips of my children. You what sup- posed to be my beginning again. You what supposed to be my harvest. (To BENEATHA) You you mourn- ing your brother?
WALTER (A beat; staring at him) And my father (With sudden intensity) My father almost beat a man to death once because this man called him a bad name or something, you know what I mean? LINDNER (Looking up, frozen) No, no, Tin afraid I don't 148 A RAISIN IN THE SUN WALTER (A beat. The tension hangs; then WALTER steps back from it) Yeah. Well what I mean is that we come from people who had a lot of pride. I mean we are very proud people. And that's my sister over there and she's going to be a doctor and we are very proud LINDNER Well I am sure that is very nice, but WALTER What I am telling you is that we called you over here to tell you that we are very proud and that this (Signaling to TRAVIS) Travis, come here. (TRAVIS crosses and WALTER draws him before him facing the man) This is my son, and he makes the sixth generation our family in this country. And we have all thought about your offer LINDNER Well, good... good WALTER And we have decided to move into our house because my father my father he earned it for us brick by brick. (MAMA has her eyes closed and is rock- ing back and forth as though she were in church, with her head nodding the Amen yes) We don't want to make no trouble for nobody or fight no causes, and we will try to be good neighbors. And that's all we got to say about that. (He looks the man absolutely in the eyes) We don't want your money. (He turns and walks away) LINDNER (Looking around at all of them) I take it then that you have decided to occupy... BENEATHA That's what the man said. LINDNER (To MAMA in her reverie) Then I would like to appeal to you, Mrs. Younger. You are older and wiser and understand things better I am sure.. , MAMA I am afraid you don't understand. My son said we was going to move and there ain't nothing left for A RAISIN IN THE SUN 149 me to say, (Briskly) You know how these young folks is nowadays, mister. Can't do a thing with 'em! (As he opens his mouth, she rises) Good-bye. LINDNER (Folding up his materials) Well if you are that final about it -.. there is nothing left for me to say. (He finishes, almost ignored by the family, who are concentrating on WALTER LEE. At the door LINDNER halts and looks around) I sure hope you people know what you're getting into. (He shakes his head and exits) RUTH (Looking around and coming to life) Well, for God's sake if the moving men are here LETS GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! MAMA (Into action) Ain't it the truth! Look at all this here mess. Ruth, put Travis' good jacket on him... Walter Lee, fix your tie and tuck your shirt in, you look like somebody's hoodlum! Lord have mercy, where is my plant? (She flies to get it amid the general bustling of the family, who are deliberately trying to ignore the nobility of the past moment) You all start on down
... Travis child, don't go empty-handed... Ruth, where did I put that box with my skillets in it? I want to be in charge of it myself... I'm going to make us the biggest dinner we ever ate tonight... Beneatha, what's the matter with them stockings? Pull them things up, girl... (The family starts to file out as two moving men appear and begin to carry out the heavier pieces of furniture, bumping into the family as they move about) BENEATHA Mama, Asagai asked me to marry him today and go to Africa MAMA (In the middle of her getting-ready activity) He did? You ain't old enough to marry nobody (Seeing the moving men lifting one of her chairs precariously) 150 A RAISIN IN THE SUN Darling, that ain't no bale of cotton, please handle it so we can sit in it again! I had that chair twenty-five years... (The movers sigh with exasperation and go on with their work} BENEATHA (Girlishly and unreasonably trying to pursue the conversation) To go to Africa, Mama be a doctor in Africa... MAMA (Distracted) Yes, baby WALTER Africa! What he want you to go to Africa for? BENEATHA To practice there... WALTER Girl, if you don't get all them silly ideas out your head! You better marry yourself a man with some loot... BENEATHA (Angrily, precisely as in the first scene of the play) What have you got to do with who I marry!
WALTER Plenty. Now I think George Murchison BENEATHA George Murchison! I wouldn't marry him if he was Adam and I was Eve! (WALTER and BENEATHA go out yelling at each other vigorously and the anger is loud and real till their voices diminish. RUTH stands at the door and turns to MAMA and smiles knowingly) MAMA (Fixing her hat at last) Yeah they something all right, my children... RUTH Yeah they're something. Let's go, Lena. MAMA (Stalling, starting to look around at the house) Yes I'm coming. Ruth RUTH Yes? A RAISIN IN THE SUN 151 MAMA (Quietly, woman to woman) He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he? Kind of like a rain- bow after the rain... RUTH (Biting her lip lest her own pride explode in front of MAMA) Yes, Lena. (WALTER'S voice calls for them raucously) WALTER (Off stage) Y'all come on! These people charges by the hour, you know! MAMA (Waving RUTH out vaguely) All right, honey go on down. I be down directly. (RUTH hesitates, then exits. MAMA stands, at last alone in the living room, her plant on the table before her as the lights start to come down. She looks around at all the walls and ceilings and suddenly, despite herself, while the children call below, a great heaving thing rises in her and she puts her fist to her mouth to stifle it, takes a final desperate look, pulls her coat about her, pats her hat and goes out. The lights dim down. The door opens and she comes back in, grabs her plant, and goes out for the last time) Curtain
