ACT I

SCENE ONE

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—
(He hands the boy the coin, but his eyes are
directed to his wife’s, TRAVIS takes the money
happily)

TRAVIS Thanks, Daddy.
(He starts out. RUTH watches both of them with murder in her eyes. WALTER stands and stares back at her with defiance, and suddenly reaches
into his pocket again on an afterthought)

WALTER (Without even looking at his son, still staring hard
at his wife) In fact, here’s another fifty cents … Buy
yourself some fruit today—or take a taxicab to school or
something!

TRAVIS Whoopee— (He leaps up and clasps his father around the middle with his legs, and they face each other in mutual appreciation; slowly WALTER LEE peeks
around the boy to catch the violent rays from his
wife’s eyes and draws his head back as if shot)

WALTER You better get down now—and get to school, man.

TRAVIS (At the door) O.K. Good-bye.

(He exits)

WALTER (After him, pointing with pride) That’s my boy.
(She looks at him in disgust and turns back to her work)
You know what I was thinking ’bout in the bathroom this morning?

RUTH No.

WALTER How come you always try to be so pleasant!

RUTH What is there to be pleasant ’bout!

WALTER You want to know what I was thinking ’bout in the
bathroom or not!

RUTH I know what you thinking ’bout.

WALTER (Ignoring her) ’Bout what me and Willy Harris was
talking about last night.

RUTH (Immediately—a refrain) Willy Harris is a good-for nothing
loudmouth.

WALTER Anybody who talks to me has got to be a good-for nothing
loudmouth, ain’t he? And what you know about
who is just a good-for-nothing loudmouth? Charlie Atkins
was just a “good-for-nothing loudmouth” too, wasn’t he!
When he wanted me to go in the dry-cleaning business
with him. And now—he’s grossing a hundred thousand a
year. A hundred thousand dollars a year! You still call him
a loudmouth!

RUTH (Bitterly) Oh, Walter Lee …
(She folds her head on her arms over the table)

WALTER (Rising and coming to her and standing over her)
You tired, ain’t you? Tired of everything. Me, the boy, the
way we live—this beat-up hole—everything. Ain’t you?
(She doesn’t look up, doesn’t answer) So tired—
moaning and groaning all the time, but you wouldn’t do
nothing to help, would you? You couldn’t be on my side
that long for nothing, could you?

RUTH Walter, please leave me alone.

WALTER A man needs for a woman to back him up …

RUTH Walter—

WALTER Mama would listen to you. You know she listen to
you more than she do me and Bennie. She think more of
you. All you have to do is just sit down with her when you
drinking your coffee one morning and talking ’bout things
like you do and—(He sits down beside her and
demonstrates graphically what he thinks her methods
and tone should be)—you just sip your coffee, see, and
say easy like that you been thinking ’bout that deal Walter
Lee is so interested in, ’bout the store and all, and sip
some more coffee, like what you saying ain’t really that
important to you— And the next thing you know, she be
listening good and asking you questions and when I
come home—I can tell her the details. This ain’t no fly-by night
proposition, baby. I mean we figured it out, me and
Willy and Bobo.

RUTH (With a frown) Bobo?

WALTER Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind
cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial
investment on the place be ’bout thirty thousand, see.
That be ten thousand each. Course, there’s a couple of
hundred you got to pay so’s you don’t spend your life just
waiting for them clowns to let your license get approved —

RUTH You mean graft?

WALTER (Frowning impatiently) Don’t call it that. See there,
that just goes to show you what women understand about
the world. Baby, don’t nothing happen for you in this
world ’less you pay somebody off!

RUTH Walter, leave me alone! (She raises her head and
stares at him vigorously—then says, more quietly) Eat
your eggs, they gonna be cold.

WALTER (Straightening up from her and looking off) That’s
it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a
dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. (Sadly, but
gaining in power) Man say: I got to take hold of this here
world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go
to work. (Passionately now) Man say: I got to change my
life, I’m choking to death, baby! And his woman say—(In
utter anguish as he brings his fists down on his thighs) —Your eggs is getting cold!

RUTH (Softly) Walter, that ain’t none of our money.

WALTER (Not listening at all or even looking at her) This morning, I was lookin’ in the mirror and thinking about it … I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years
and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room—(Very,
very quietly)—and all I got to give him is stories about
how rich white people live …

RUTH Eat your eggs, Walter.

WALTER (Slams the table and jumps up)—DAMN MY
EGGS—DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!

RUTH Then go to work.

WALTER (Looking up at her) See—I’m trying to talk to you
’bout myself—(Shaking his head with the repetition)—
and all you can say is eat them eggs and go to work.

RUTH (Wearily) Honey, you never say nothing new. I listen to
you every day, every night and every morning, and you
never say nothing new. (Shrugging) So you would rather
be Mr. Arnold than be his chauffeur. So—I would rather
be living in Buckingham Palace.

WALTER That is just what is wrong with the colored woman
in this world … Don’t understand about building their men
up and making ’em feel like they somebody. Like they
can do something.

RUTH (Drily, but to hurt) There are colored men who do
things.

WALTER No thanks to the colored woman.

RUTH Well, being a colored woman, I guess I can’t help myself none.
(She rises and gets the ironing board and sets it
up and attacks a huge pile of rough-dried
clothes, sprinkling them in preparation for the
ironing and then rolling them into tight fat balls)

WALTER (Mumbling) We one group of men tied to a race of
women with small minds!

(His sister BENEATHA enters. She is about twenty,
as slim and intense as her brother. She is not as
pretty as her sister-in-law, but her lean, almost
intellectual face has a handsomeness of its own.
She wears a bright-red flannel nightie, and her
thick hair stands wildly about her head. Her
speech is a mixture of many things; it is different
from the rest of the family’s insofar as education
has permeated her sense of English—and
perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has
finally—at last—won out in her inflection; but not
altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring
and transformed use of vowels which is the
decided influence of the Southside. She passes
through the room without looking at either RUTH
or WALTER and goes to the outside door and
looks, a little blindly, out to the bathroom. She
sees that it has been lost to the Johnsons. She
closes the door with a sleepy vengeance and
crosses to the table and sits down a little
defeated)

BENEATHA I am going to start timing those people.

WALTER You should get up earlier.

BENEATHA (Her face in her hands. She is still fighting the
urge to go back to bed) Really—would you suggest
dawn? Where’s the paper?

WALTER (Pushing the paper across the table to her as he
studies her almost clinically, as though he has never
seen her before) You a horrible-looking chick at this
hour.

BENEATHA (Drily) Good morning, everybody.

WALTER (Senselessly) How is school coming?

BENEATHA (In the same spirit) Lovely. Lovely. And you
know, biology is the greatest. (Looking up at him) I
dissected something that looked just like you yesterday.

WALTER I just wondered if you’ve made up your mind and
everything.

BENEATHA (Gaining in sharpness and impatience) And
what did I answer yesterday morning—and the day
before that?

RUTH (From the ironing board, like someone disinterested
and old) Don’t be so nasty, Bennie.

BENEATHA (Still to her brother) And the day before that and
the day before that!

WALTER (Defensively) I’m interested in you. Something
wrong with that? Ain’t many girls who decide—

WALTER and BENEATHA (In unison) —“to be a doctor.”
(Silence)

WALTER Have we figured out yet just exactly how much
medical school is going to cost?

RUTH Walter Lee, why don’t you leave that girl alone and get
out of here to work?

BENEATHA (Exits to the bathroom and bangs on the door)
Come on out of there, please!
(She comes back into the room)

WALTER (Looking at his sister intently) You know the check
is coming tomorrow.

BENEATHA (Turning on him with a sharpness all her own)
That money belongs to Mama, Walter, and it’s for her to
decide how she wants to use it. I don’t care if she wants
to buy a house or a rocket ship or just nail it up
somewhere and look at it. It’s hers. Not ours—hers.

WALTER (Bitterly) Now ain’t that fine! You just got your mother’s interest at heart, ain’t you, girl? You such a nice
girl—but if Mama got that money she can always take a
few thousand and help you through school too—can’t
she?

BENEATHA I have never asked anyone around here to do
anything for me!

WALTER No! And the line between asking and just
accepting when the time comes is big and wide—ain’t it!

BENEATHA (With fury) What do you want from me, Brother—
that I quit school or just drop dead, which!

WALTER I don’t want nothing but for you to stop acting holy
’round here. Me and Ruth done made some sacrifices for
you—why can’t you do something for the family?

RUTH Walter, don’t be dragging me in it.

WALTER You are in it— Don’t you get up and go work in
somebody’s kitchen for the last three years to help put
clothes on her back?

RUTH Oh, Walter—that’s not fair …

WALTER It ain’t that nobody expects you to get on your
knees and say thank you, Brother; thank you, Ruth; thank
you, Mama—and thank you, Travis, for wearing the same
pair of shoes for two semesters—

BENEATHA (Dropping to her knees) Well—I do—all right?—
thank everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be
anything at all! (Pursuing him on her knees across the
floor) FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!

RUTH Please stop it! Your mama’ll hear you.

WALTER Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you
so crazy ’bout messing ’round with sick people—then go
be a nurse like other women—or just get married and be
quiet …

BENEATHA Well—you finally got it said … It took you three
years but you finally got it said. Walter, give up; leave me
alone—it’s Mama’s money.

WALTER He was my father, too!

BENEATHA So what? He was mine, too—and Travis’
grandfather—but the insurance money belongs to Mama.
Picking on me is not going to make her give it to you to
invest in any liquor stores—(Under breath, dropping into
a chair)—and I for one say, God bless Mama for that!

WALTER (To RUTH) See—did you hear? Did you hear!

RUTH Honey, please go to work.

WALTER Nobody in this house is ever going to understand me.

BENEATHA Because you’re a nut.

WALTER Who’s a nut?

BENEATHA You—you are a nut. Thee is mad, boy.

WALTER (Looking at his wife and his sister from the door,
very sadly) The world’s most backward race of people,
and that’s a fact.

BENEATHA (Turning slowly in her chair) And then there are
all those prophets who would lead us out of the
wilderness—(WALTER slams out of the house)—into the
swamps!

RUTH Bennie, why you always gotta be pickin’ on your
brother? Can’t you be a little sweeter sometimes? (Door
opens, WALTER walks in. He fumbles with his cap, starts
to speak, clears throat, looks everywhere but at RUTH.
Finally:)

WALTER (To RUTH) I need some money for carfare.

RUTH (Looks at him, then warms; teasing, but tenderly)
Fifty cents? (She goes to her bag and gets money) Here —take a taxi!

(WALTER exits, MAMA enters. She is a woman in
her early sixties, full-bodied and strong. She is
one of those women of a certain grace and
beauty who wear it so unobtrusively that it takes a
while to notice. Her dark-brown face is
surrounded by the total whiteness of her hair,
and, being a woman who has adjusted to many
things in life and overcome many more, her face
is full of strength. She has, we can see, wit and
faith of a kind that keep her eyes lit and full of
interest and expectancy. She is, in a word, a
beautiful woman. Her bearing is perhaps most
like the noble bearing of the women of the
Hereros of Southwest Africa—rather as if she
imagines that as she walks she still bears a
basket or a vessel upon her head. Her speech,
on the other hand, is as careless as her carriage
is precise—she is inclined to slur everything—
but her voice is perhaps not so much quiet as
simply soft)

MAMA Who that ’round here slamming doors at this hour?
(She crosses through the room, goes to the
window, opens it, and brings in a feeble little
plant growing doggedly in a small pot on the
windowsill. She feels the dirt and puts it back out)

RUTH That was Walter Lee. He and Bennie was at it again.

MAMA My children and they tempers. Lord, if this little old
plant don’t get more sun than it’s been getting it ain’t
never going to see spring again. (She turns from the
window) What’s the matter with you this morning, Ruth?
You looks right peaked. You aiming to iron all them
things? Leave some for me. I’ll get to ’em this afternoon.
Bennie honey, it’s too drafty for you to be sitting ’round
half dressed. Where’s your robe?

BENEATHA In the cleaners.

MAMA Well, go get mine and put it on.

BENEATHA I’m not cold, Mama, honest.

MAMA I know—but you so thin …

BENEATHA (Irritably) Mama, I’m not cold.

MAMA (Seeing the make-down bed as TRAVIS has left it)
Lord have mercy, look at that poor bed. Bless his heart—
he tries, don’t he?

(She moves to the bed TRAVIS has sloppily made
up)

RUTH No—he don’t half try at all ’cause he knows you going
to come along behind him and fix everything. That’s just
how come he don’t know how to do nothing right now—
you done spoiled that boy so.

MAMA (Folding bedding) Well—he’s a little boy. Ain’t
supposed to know ’bout housekeeping. My baby, that’s
what he is. What you fix for his breakfast this morning?

RUTH (Angrily) I feed my son, Lena!

MAMA I ain’t meddling—(Under breath; busy-bodyish) I just
noticed all last week he had cold cereal, and when it
starts getting this chilly in the fall a child ought to have
some hot grits or something when he goes out in the cold —

RUTH (Furious) I gave him hot oats—is that all right!

MAMA I ain’t meddling. (Pause) Put a lot of nice butter on it?
(RUTH shoots her an angry look and does not reply) He
likes lots of butter.

RUTH (Exasperated) Lena—

MAMA (To BENEATHA. MAMA is inclined to wander
conversationally sometimes) What was you and your
brother fussing ’bout this morning?

BENEATHA It’s not important, Mama.
(She gets up and goes to look out at the
bathroom, which is apparently free, and she
picks up her towels and rushes out)

MAMA What was they fighting about?

RUTH Now you know as well as I do.

MAMA (Shaking her head) Brother still worrying his self sick
about that money?

RUTH You know he is.

MAMA You had breakfast?

RUTH Some coffee.

MAMA Girl, you better start eating and looking after yourself
better. You almost thin as Travis.

RUTH Lena—

MAMA Un-hunh?

RUTH What are you going to do with it?

MAMA Now don’t you start, child. It’s too early in the morning
to be talking about money. It ain’t Christian.

RUTH It’s just that he got his heart set on that store—
MAMA You mean that liquor store that Willy Harris want him
to invest in?

RUTH Yes—

MAMA We ain’t no business people, Ruth. We just plain
working folks.

RUTH Ain’t nobody business people till they go into
business. Walter Lee say colored people ain’t never
going to start getting ahead till they start gambling on
some different kinds of things in the world—investments
and things.

MAMA What done got into you, girl? Walter Lee done finally
sold you on investing.

RUTH No. Mama, something is happening between Walter
and me. I don’t know what it is—but he needs something —something I can’t give him anymore. He needs this
chance, Lena.

MAMA (Frowning deeply) But liquor, honey—

RUTH Well—like Walter say—I spec people going to always
be drinking themselves some liquor.

MAMA Well—whether they drinks it or not ain’t none of my
business. But whether I go into business selling it to ’em
is, and I don’t want that on my ledger this late in life.
(Stopping suddenly and studying her daughter-in-law)
Ruth Younger, what’s the matter with you today? You look
like you could fall over right there.

RUTH I’m tired.

MAMA Then you better stay home from work today.

RUTH I can’t stay home. She’d be calling up the agency and
screaming at them, “My girl didn’t come in today—send me somebody! My girl didn’t come in!” Oh, she just have
a fit …

MAMA Well, let her have it. I’ll just call her up and say you got
the flu—

RUTH (Laughing) Why the flu?

MAMA ’Cause it sounds respectable to ’em. Something
white people get, too. They know ’bout the flu. Otherwise
they think you been cut up or something when you tell ’em
you sick.

RUTH I got to go in. We need the money.

MAMA Somebody would of thought my children done all but
starved to death the way they talk about money here late.
Child, we got a great big old check coming tomorrow.

RUTH (Sincerely, but also self-righteously) Now that’s your money. It ain’t got nothing to do with me. We all feel like
that—Walter and Bennie and me—even Travis.

MAMA (Thoughtfully, and suddenly very far away) Ten
thousand dollars—

RUTH Sure is wonderful.

MAMA Ten thousand dollars.

RUTH You know what you should do, Miss Lena? You should
take yourself a trip somewhere. To Europe or South
America or someplace—

MAMA (Throwing up her hands at the thought) Oh, child!

RUTH I’m serious. Just pack up and leave! Go on away and
enjoy yourself some. Forget about the family and have
yourself a ball for once in your life—

MAMA (Drily) You sound like I’m just about ready to die. Who’d go with me? What I look like wandering ’round
Europe by myself?

RUTH Shoot—these here rich white women do it all the time.
They don’t think nothing of packing up they suitcases and
piling on one of them big steamships and—swoosh!—
they gone, child.

MAMA Something always told me I wasn’t no rich white
woman.

RUTH Well—what are you going to do with it then?

MAMA I ain’t rightly decided. (Thinking. She speaks now
with emphasis) Some of it got to be put away for
Beneatha and her schoolin’—and ain’t nothing going to
touch that part of it. Nothing. (She waits several seconds,
trying to make up her mind about something, and looks
at RUTH a little tentatively before going on) Been thinking
that we maybe could meet the notes on a little old two story
somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play in
the summertime, if we use part of the insurance for a
down payment and everybody kind of pitch in. I could maybe take on a little day work again, few days a week —

RUTH (Studying her mother-in-law furtively and
concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage
without seeming to) Well, Lord knows, we’ve put enough
rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by
now …

MAMA (Looking up at the words “rat trap” and then looking
around and leaning back and sighing—in a suddenly
reflective mood—) “Rat trap”—yes, that’s all it is.
(Smiling) I remember just as well the day me and Big
Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two
weeks and wasn’t planning on living here no more than a
year. (She shakes her head at the dissolved dream) We
was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know, and
buy a little place out in Morgan Park. We had even
picked out the house. (Chuckling a little) Looks right
dumpy today. But Lord, child, you should know all the
dreams I had ’bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back—(She waits and
stops smiling) And didn’t none of it happen.
(Dropping her hands in a futile gesture)

RUTH (Keeps her head down, ironing) Yes, life can be a
barrel of disappointments, sometimes.

MAMA Honey, Big Walter would come in here some nights
back then and slump down on that couch there and just
look at the rug, and look at me and look at the rug and
then back at me—and I’d know he was down
then … really down. (After a second very long and
thoughtful pause; she is seeing back to times that only
she can see) And then, Lord, when I lost that baby—little
Claude—I almost thought I was going to lose Big Walter
too. Oh, that man grieved hisself! He was one man to
love his children.

RUTH Ain’t nothin’ can tear at you like losin’ your baby.

MAMA I guess that’s how come that man finally worked
hisself to death like he done. Like he was fighting his
own war with this here world that took his baby from him.

RUTH He sure was a fine man, all right. I always liked Mr.
Younger.

MAMA Crazy ’bout his children! God knows there was plenty
wrong with Walter Younger—hard-headed, mean, kind of
wild with women—plenty wrong with him. But he sure
loved his children. Always wanted them to have
something—be something. That’s where Brother gets all
these notions, I reckon. Big Walter used to say, he’d get
right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with
the water standing in his eyes and say, “Seem like God
didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—
but He did give us children to make them dreams seem
worth while.” (She smiles) He could talk like that, don’t
you know.

RUTH Yes, he sure could. He was a good man, Mr. Younger.

MAMA Yes, a fine man—just couldn’t never catch up with his
dreams, that’s all.

(BENEATHA comes in, brushing her hair and
looking up to the ceiling, where the sound of a
vacuum cleaner has started up)

BENEATHA What could be so dirty on that woman’s rugs that
she has to vacuum them every single day?

RUTH I wish certain young women ’round here who I could
name would take inspiration about certain rugs in a
certain apartment I could also mention.

BENEATHA (Shrugging) How much cleaning can a house
need, for Christ’s sakes.

MAMA (Not liking the Lord’s name used thus) Bennie!

RUTH Just listen to her—just listen!

BENEATHA Oh, God!

MAMA If you use the Lord’s name just one more time—

BENEATHA (A bit of a whine) Oh, Mama—

RUTH Fresh—just fresh as salt, this girl!

BENEATHA (Drily) Well—if the salt loses its savor—

MAMA Now that will do. I just ain’t going to have you ’round
here reciting the scriptures in vain—you hear me?

BENEATHA How did I manage to get on everybody’s wrong
side by just walking into a room?

RUTH If you weren’t so fresh—

BENEATHA Ruth, I’m twenty years old.

MAMA What time you be home from school today?

BENEATHA Kind of late. (With enthusiasm) Madeline is
going to start my guitar lessons today.

(MAMA and RUTH look up with the same
expression)

MAMA Your what kind of lessons?

BENEATHA Guitar.

RUTH Oh, Father!

MAMA How come you done taken it in your mind to learn to
play the guitar?

BENEATHA I just want to, that’s all.

MAMA (Smiling) Lord, child, don’t you know what to do with
yourself? How long it going to be before you get tired of
this now—like you got tired of that little playacting group
you joined last year? (Looking at RUTH) And what was it
the year before that?

RUTH The horseback-riding club for which she bought that
fifty-five-dollar riding habit that’s been hanging in the
closet ever since!

MAMA (To BENEATHA) Why you got to flit so from one thing
to another, baby?

BENEATHA (Sharply) I just want to learn to play the guitar. Is
there anything wrong with that?

MAMA Ain’t nobody trying to stop you. I just wonders
sometimes why you has to flit so from one thing to
another all the time. You ain’t never done nothing with all
that camera equipment you brought home—

BENEATHA I don’t flit! I—I experiment with different forms of
expression—

RUTH Like riding a horse?

BENEATHA —People have to express themselves one way
or another.

MAMA What is it you want to express?

BENEATHA (Angrily) Me! (MAMA and RUTH look at each
other and burst into raucous laughter) Don’t worry—I
don’t expect you to understand.

MAMA (To change the subject) Who you going out with
tomorrow night?

BENEATHA (With displeasure) George Murchison again.

MAMA (Pleased) Oh—you getting a little sweet on him?

RUTH You ask me, this child ain’t sweet on nobody but
herself—(Under breath) Express herself!

(They laugh)

BENEATHA Oh—I like George all right, Mama. I mean I like
him enough to go out with him and stuff, but—

RUTH (For devilment) What does and stuff mean?

BENEATHA Mind your own business.

MAMA Stop picking at her now, Ruth. (She chuckles—then
a suspicious sudden look at her daughter as she turns
in her chair for emphasis) What DOES it mean?

BENEATHA (Wearily) Oh, I just mean I couldn’t ever really be
serious about George. He’s—he’s so shallow.

RUTH Shallow—what do you mean he’s shallow? He’s rich!

MAMA Hush, Ruth.

BENEATHA I know he’s rich. He knows he’s rich, too.

RUTH Weil—what other qualities a man got to have to
satisfy you, little girl?

BENEATHA You wouldn’t even begin to understand. Anybody
who married Walter could not possibly understand.

MAMA (Outraged) What kind of way is that to talk about your
brother?

BENEATHA Brother is a flip—let’s face it.

MAMA (To RUTH, helplessly) What’s a flip?

RUTH (Glad to add kindling) She’s saying he’s crazy.

BENEATHA Not crazy. Brother isn’t really crazy yet—he—
he’s an elaborate neurotic.

MAMA Hush your mouth!

BENEATHA As for George. Well. George looks good—he’s
got a beautiful car and he takes me to nice places and,
as my sister-in-law says, he is probably the richest boy I
will ever get to know and I even like him sometimes—but
if the Youngers are sitting around waiting to see if their
little Bennie is going to tie up the family with the Murchisons, they are wasting their time.

RUTH You mean you wouldn’t marry George Murchison if he
asked you someday? That pretty, rich thing? Honey, I
knew you was odd—

BENEATHA No I would not marry him if all I felt for him was
what I feel now. Besides, George’s family wouldn’t really
like it.

MAMA Why not?

BENEATHA Oh, Mama—The Murchisons are honest-to-Godreal-foe-rich
colored people, and the only people in the
world who are more snobbish than rich white people are
rich colored people. I thought everybody knew that. I’ve met Mrs. Murchison. She’s a scene!

MAMA You must not dislike people ’cause they well off,
honey.

BENEATHA Why not? It makes just as much sense as
disliking people ’cause they are poor, and lots of people
do that.

RUTH (A wisdom-of-the-ages manner. To MAMA) Well, she’ll
get over some of this—

BENEATHA Get over it? What are you talking about, Ruth?
Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about
who I’m going to marry yet—if I ever get married.

MAMA and RUTH If!

MAMA Now, Bennie—

BENEATHA Oh, I probably will … but first I’m going to be a
doctor, and George, for one, still thinks that’s pretty funny.
I couldn’t be bothered with that. I am going to be a doctor
and everybody around here better understand that!

MAMA (Kindly) ’Course you going to be a doctor, honey, God willing.

BENEATHA (Drily) God hasn’t got a thing to do with it.

MAMA Beneatha—that just wasn’t necessary.

BENEATHA Well—neither is God. I get sick of hearing about
God.

MAMA Beneatha!

BENEATHA I mean it! I’m just tired of hearing about God all
the time. What has He got to do with anything? Does he
pay tuition?

MAMA You ’bout to get your fresh little jaw slapped!

RUTH That’s just what she needs, all right!

BENEATHA Why? Why can’t I say what I want to around here,
like everybody else?

MAMA It don’t sound nice for a young girl to say things like
that—you wasn’t brought up that way. Me and your father
went to trouble to get you and Brother to church every
Sunday.

BENEATHA Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of
ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t accept. It’s not
important. I am not going out and be immoral or commit
crimes because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think
about it. It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all
the things the human race achieves through its own
stubborn effort. There simply is no blasted God—there is
only man and it is he who makes miracles!

(MAMA absorbs this speech, studies her daughter
and rises slowly and crosses to BENEATHA and
slaps her powerfully across the face. After, there
is only silence and the daughter drops her eyes
from her mother’s face, and MAMA is very tall
before her)

MAMA Now—you say after me, in my mother’s house there
is still God. (There is a long pause and BENEATHA stares
at the floor wordlessly. MAMA repeats the phrase with
precision and cool emotion) In my mother’s house there
is still God.

BENEATHA In my mother’s house there is still God.

(A long pause)

MAMA (Walking away from BENEATHA, too disturbed for
triumphant posture. Stopping and turning back to her
daughter) There are some ideas we ain’t going to have
in this house. Not long as I am at the head of this family.

BENEATHA Yes, ma’am.

(MAMA walks out of the room)

RUTH (Almost gently, with profound understanding) You
think you a woman, Bennie—but you still a little girl. What
you did was childish—so you got treated like a child.

BENEATHA I see. (Quietly) I also see that everybody thinks
it’s all right for Mama to be a tyrant. But all the tyranny in
the world will never put a God in the heavens!

(She picks up her books and goes out. Pause)

RUTH (Goes to MAMA’s door) She said she was sorry.

MAMA (Coming out, going to her plant) They frightens me,
Ruth. My children.

RUTH You got good children, Lena. They just a little off
sometimes—but they’re good.

MAMA No—there’s something come down between me and
them that don’t let us understand each other and I don’t
know what it is. One done almost lost his mind thinking
’bout money all the time and the other done commence
to talk about things I can’t seem to understand in no form
or fashion. What is it that’s changing, Ruth.

RUTH (Soothingly, older than her years) Now … you taking
it all too seriously. You just got strong-willed children and
it takes a strong woman like you to keep ’em in hand.

MAMA (Looking at her plant and sprinkling a little water on
it) They spirited all right, my children. Got to admit they
got spirit—Bennie and Walter. Like this little old plant that
ain’t never had enough sunshine or nothing—and look at
it …

(She has her back to RUTH, who has had to stop
ironing and lean against something and put the
back of her hand to her forehead)

RUTH (Trying to keep MAMA from noticing)
You … sure … loves that little old thing, don’t you? …

MAMA Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see
sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This
plant is close as I ever got to having one. (She looks out
of the window as she replaces the plant) Lord, ain’t
nothing as dreary as the view from this window on a
dreary day, is there? Why ain’t you singing this morning,
Ruth? Sing that “No Ways Tired.” That song always lifts me up so—(She turns at last to see that RUTH has slipped quietly to the floor, in a state of semiconsciousness) Ruth! Ruth honey—what’s the matter with you … Ruth!

Curtain