Analysis
While the play takes place entirely within the Youngers’
apartment, Hansberry takes care to introduce external influences.
This scene includes two phone calls: one for Walter from Willy about
the liquor store investment and the other for Beneatha from Joseph
Asagai, her good friend and fellow intellectual. These phone calls
serve parallel functions for those who receive them and demonstrate
what is important to both of the characters: Walter is waiting to
move quickly on the investment, while Beneatha cannot wait to see
Asagai and introduce him to her family.
Beneatha’s spraying of the apartment seems symbolic of
her dissatisfaction with her surroundings. She wants to rid herself
and her family of what she later refers to as “acute ghetto-itis.”
It is obvious that Beneatha is not proud of her family’s economic
and social situation and is a bit embarrassed by it when Asagai
visits. As she asks him to sit down, she scurries to throw the spray
gun off the couch in the hopes that Asagai won’t see it. Interestingly,
Beneatha’s spraying reverses the pattern the Youngers’ dreams. While
most of their dreams involve the acquisition of some markers of
success, such as a home, large cars, and privileged education, Beneatha
has to begin by first ridding herself of the bugs that plague her
current situation.
The interaction between Beneatha and Asagai reveals how
serious Beneatha is about finding her identity. Beneatha does not
want to assimilate into, or become successful in, the dominant white
culture of the 1950s. Yet while she wants
to break free of conforming to the white ideal, she still wants
to acclimate herself to an educated American life. Many African-American
intellectuals and writers, especially in the 1960s,
faced this dilemma; Beneatha’s character thus seems somewhat ahead
of her time. Indeed, her seeking of her roots in Africa to forge
her identity (even though her family has been in America for five
generations) precedes the New African movement of the 1960s.
In this movement, African-Americans embraced their racial history,
stopping their attempts to assimilate, even in physical appearance.
Asagai hints at what is to come by telling Beneatha that by straightening
her hair she is “mutilating” it. In his opinion, her hair should
look as it does naturally: she should stop straightening it to look
like white hair and instead wear an afro. Unsure of her identity
as an African-American woman joining an overwhelmingly white world,
Beneatha turns to Asagai to see if he can supply a lost part of
her self.
This scene also reveals Walter’s growing restlessness,
as well as the desperation with which Ruth is trying to hold her
family together. Ruth does not want to have an abortion, but she
considers it because she sees it as the only way to keep the family
together. It is possible that Hansberry is attempting to make a
bold feminist statement with this plot twist. During the 1950s,
abortion was illegal, but Ruth has valid reasons for not wanting
her pregnancy. Obviously, Ruth is not an immoral or evil woman.
She simply wants to do the best for the family that she already
has. Walter, on the other hand, lacks this singular dedication to
his family. His character is meant to represent a kind of broken
masculinity that society perceived among African-American men of
the 1950s, men who were shut out of the American
dream by racism and poverty. Because of this exclusion, Walter’s
dreams of money and success in business become inextricably linked
to his image of himself as a man.
Through the announcement of Ruth’s pregnancy, we can
see the power that Mama wields as the matriarch of the family. She
is at the center of her family’s life, and she controls many of
the interactions of the members of her household. Actresses seem
to portray the character of Mama in two primary ways: either as
a folksy relic of an earlier time, a woman who hopes one day to
have a garden in the sun, or more recently, as a hardworking, powerful,
all-knowing matriarch. Both interpretations seem valid. She reminds
the family of the importance of family and history, and she holds
the power to make economic decisions. She does so literally in this
scene by holding the insurance check.
