Summary
Later on the same Saturday, Beneatha emerges
from her room cloaked in the Nigerian clothes that Asagai has brought
her. She dances around the apartment, claiming to be performing
a tribal dance while shouting “OCOMOGOSIAY” and singing. Ruth finds
Beneatha’s pageantry silly and questions her about it. Meanwhile,
Walter returns home drunk. He sees Beneatha all dressed up and acts
out some made-up tribal rituals with her, at one point standing
on a table and pronouncing himself “Flaming Spear.” Ruth looks on
wearily.
George Murchison arrives to pick up Beneatha.
Beneatha removes her headdress to reveal that she has cut off most
of her hair, leaving only an unstraightened afro. Everyone is shocked, amazed,
and slightly disappointed with Beneatha, prompting a fierce discussion
between Beneatha and George about the importance of their African
heritage. Beneatha goes to change for the theater, and Walter talks
to George about business plans. George does not seem interested.
Walter then becomes belligerent as he makes fun of George’s white
shoes. Embarrassed, Ruth explains that the white shoes are part
of the “college style.” George obviously looks
down on Walter—calling him “Prometheus”—and Walter gets even angrier
at him. George and Beneatha finally leave, and Ruth and Walter then
begin to fight about Walter going out, spending money, and interacting
with people like Willy Harris. They do begin to make up, though,
by acknowledging that a great distance has grown between them.
Mama comes home and announces that she has put a down
payment on a house with some of the insurance money. Ruth is elated
to hear this news because she too dreams of moving out of their
current apartment and into a more respectable home. Meanwhile, Walter
is noticeably upset because he wants to put all the money into the liquor
store venture. They all become worried when they hear that the house
is in Clybourne Park, an entirely white neighborhood. Mama asks
for their understanding—it was the only house that they could afford.
She feels she needs to buy the house to hold the family together.
Ruth regains her pleasure and rejoices, but Walter feels betrayed,
his dream swept under the table. Walter makes Mama feel guilty,
saying that she has crushed his dream. He goes quickly to his bedroom,
and Mama remains sitting and worrying.
Analysis
Beneatha’s exploration of her African heritage and her
entrance with her afro and Nigerian garb were perhaps the first
such appearance on an American stage. Hansberry creates a radical
character in Beneatha, one who does not willingly submit to what
she calls “oppressive” white culture. Since the audience for this
play’s initial run was mostly white, such a threat to white dominance
was extremely revolutionary.
The dancing scene with Beneatha and Walter is difficult
to interpret, as the drunken Walter seems to mock the African dances
and practices, while Beneatha seems not to comprehend this mocking.
In addition, Beneatha’s fight with George and the rest of her family represents
a larger battle within the black community over whether to enhance
and celebrate their differences from whites or whether to join white
culture and try to elevate their status within it. This desire to
join white culture, referred to as assimilationism, was a contentious
issue for the black community in the 1950s
and 1960s. The overall tone of this scene
seems to be anti-assimilationist—that is, the scene seems to value
Beneatha’s expression of her cultural roots.
Beneatha’s two suitors embody this dichotomy between
the conflicting identities available to blacks: the identity that
seeks assimilation and the identity that rejects assimilation. This
scene separates George and Asagai into completely different categories
where George, as his common name suggests, represents a black person assimilating
into the white world, while Asagai, with his ethnically rich name,
stands for the New Africanist culture that those who oppose assimilation
pursue. As Beneatha dances in a robe that Asagai gives her, George
deems her interest in her African roots absurd. His comments put
him further at odds with Beneatha, and she begins to feel more of
an affinity with Asagai and her African roots than with George and
what she considers to be his false roots in American society.
