Why does mama slap beneatha answer

Mama, outraged at such a pronouncement, asserts that she is head of the household and that there will be no such thoughts expressed in her home. Beneatha recants and leaves for school, and Mama goes to the window to tend her plant. Ruth and Mama talk about Walter and Beneatha, and Ruth suddenly faints. All of the characters in A Raisin in the Sun have unfulfilled dreams. These dreams mostly involve money. Although the Younger family seems alienated from white middle-class culture, they harbor the same materialistic dreams as the rest of American society.

In the s, the stereotypical American dream was to have a house with a yard, a big car, and a happy family. The Youngers also seem to want to live this dream, though their struggle to attain any semblance of it is dramatically different from the struggle a similar suburban family might encounter, because the Youngers are not a stereotypical middle-class family.

Rather, they live in a world in which being middle class is also a dream. She tries to give the plant enough light and water not only to grow but also to flourish and become beautiful, just as she attempts to provide for her family with meager yet consistent financial support. Mama also imagines a garden that she can tend along with her dream house. The small potted plant acts as a temporary stand-in for her much larger dream. Her relentless care for the plant represents her protection of her dream.

Despite her cramped living situation and the lifetime of hard work that she has endured, she maintains her focus on her dream, which helps her to persevere. Still, no matter how much Mama works, the plant remains feeble, because there is so little light.

Similarly, it is difficult for her to care for her family as much as she wants and to have her family members grow as much as she wants. Feminism had not fully emerged into the American cultural landscape when Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, and Beneatha seems a prototype for the more enthusiastic feminism of the s and s. She not only wants to have a career—a far cry from the June Cleaver stay-at-home-mom role models of the s June Cleaver was the name of the mother on Leave it to Beaver, a popular lates sitcom about a stereotypical suburban family —but also desires to find her identity and pursue an independent career without relying solely on a man.

Mama and Beneatha are, of course, a generation apart, while Ruth occupies a place somewhere in the middle; Hansberry argues that Beneatha is the least traditional of the women because she is the youngest.

Why does Mama slap Beneatha? She uses the Lord's name in vain twice. She wants to spend all the money on herself. She ran away from home. She won't help Mama with the dishes. Who is Travis? Beneatha's uncle. Mama's son. Walter's brother. Walter and Ruth's son. Walter got a settlement from work. Younger won a lawsuit. Younger Big Walter passed away. What does Beneatha want to be when she 'grows up'?

Married to a rich man. The author of the play is. One conflict that takes place in Act I is when:. Walter Lee struggles to keep his job as a chauffeur. Walter Lee struggles with other family members over money. Travis struggles to keep up his grades in school.

Mama struggles with Ruth for control of the household. The Younger family lives in a cramped, "furniture crowded" apartment that is clearly too small for its five occupants in one of the poorer sections of Southside Chicago. Because of her religious convictions against liquor drinking, Mama is uninterested in Walter's dream of getting rich quickly with this scheme. Ruth, Walter's wife, is so exhausted from overwork that she too is unsympathetic to Walter's obsession with the money.

Mama makes it clear that part of the check will go toward Beneatha's education in medical school. At the beginning of the play, money is the focal point of everyone's conversation, leading to arguments and creating a mood of conflict.

Walter leaves for his chauffeur's job, and Travis leaves for school. Ruth prepares for her job as a cleaning woman as Mama reprimands Beneatha about her fresh talk.

At the end of the scene, Mama discovers that Ruth has fainted and fallen to the floor. Hansberry's play even opens with the ringing of an alarm clock, as does Wright's Native Son. Raisin opens on a Friday morning as everyone is getting ready to leave the apartment for their respective obligations: Walter Lee and Ruth have to go to their jobs; Travis and Beneatha have to go to school.

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. Ruth is weary and overworked, a parallel to the apartment, which is worn out and weary in appearance from "accommodating the living of too many people for too many years.

Travis sleeps on the living room couch. Ruth and Walter Lee's bedroom is actually a small alcove just off the kitchen, originally intended to be a "breakfast room" for a smaller, wealthier family. Mama and Beneatha share the only actual bedroom of this "apartment. Ruth appears to be annoyed with Walter, although she does not openly admit it. At first, Walter seems too preoccupied with thoughts about the insurance check to consider what might be troubling Ruth.

Their conversation revolves around money and the lack thereof; even young Travis is concerned with money, as he asks, "Check coming tomorrow? Walter admonishes Ruth for telling Travis that they cannot give him fifty cents, and we are immediately more sympathetic to Walter than to Ruth, for their dialogue is reminiscent of the mother in Kathryn Forbes' play I Remember Mama, who insists that children not be told when there is no money because it makes them worry.