A Raisin in the Sun - Character Analysis
Lena Younger - Mama:
After Travis and Walter have left the apartment, Mama enters. Lena Younger is soft spoken most of the time, but not afraid to raise her voice. Hopeful for her family's future, she believes in traditional Christian values. She often does not understand how Walter is so fixated on money.
Mama and Ruth have a delicate friendship based upon mutual respect. However, they sometimes differ in how Travis should be raised.
Both women are hard workers who have sacrificed a great deal for their children and husbands.
Ruth suggests that Mama should use the money to travel to South America or Europe. Mama just laughs at the idea. Instead, she wants to set aside money for Beneatha's college and use the rest to put a down payment on a house. Mama has absolutely no interest in investing in her son's liquor store business. Owning a house had been a dream she and her late husband had been unable to fulfill together. It now seems fitting to use the money to complete that long held dream. Mama fondly remembers her husband, Walter Lee Sr. He had his flaws, Mama admits, but he deeply loved his children.
"In My Mother's House There Is Still God":
Beneatha re-enters the scene. Ruth and Mama chide Beneatha because she has been "flitting" from one interest to the next: guitar lesson, drama class, horse-back riding. They also poke fun at Beneatha's resistance toward a rich young man (George) whom she has been dating. Beneatha wants to focus on becoming a doctor before she even considers marriage.
While expressing her opinions, Beneatha doubts the existence of God, upsetting her mother.
Mama wonders how she has last touch with her children. She does not understand Walter's avarice or Beneatha's ideology. Ruth tries to explain that they are simply strong-willed individuals, but then Ruth starts to feel dizzy. She faints and scene one of A Raisin in the Sun ends with Mama in distress, shouting Ruth's name.
After Travis and Walter have left the apartment, Mama enters. Lena Younger is soft spoken most of the time, but not afraid to raise her voice. Hopeful for her family's future, she believes in traditional Christian values. She often does not understand how Walter is so fixated on money.
Mama and Ruth have a delicate friendship based upon mutual respect. However, they sometimes differ in how Travis should be raised.
Both women are hard workers who have sacrificed a great deal for their children and husbands.
Ruth suggests that Mama should use the money to travel to South America or Europe. Mama just laughs at the idea. Instead, she wants to set aside money for Beneatha's college and use the rest to put a down payment on a house. Mama has absolutely no interest in investing in her son's liquor store business. Owning a house had been a dream she and her late husband had been unable to fulfill together. It now seems fitting to use the money to complete that long held dream. Mama fondly remembers her husband, Walter Lee Sr. He had his flaws, Mama admits, but he deeply loved his children.
"In My Mother's House There Is Still God":
Beneatha re-enters the scene. Ruth and Mama chide Beneatha because she has been "flitting" from one interest to the next: guitar lesson, drama class, horse-back riding. They also poke fun at Beneatha's resistance toward a rich young man (George) whom she has been dating. Beneatha wants to focus on becoming a doctor before she even considers marriage.
While expressing her opinions, Beneatha doubts the existence of God, upsetting her mother.
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.Upset, her mother leaves the room. Beneatha leaves for school, but not before telling Ruth that, "All the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens."
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.
Mama wonders how she has last touch with her children. She does not understand Walter's avarice or Beneatha's ideology. Ruth tries to explain that they are simply strong-willed individuals, but then Ruth starts to feel dizzy. She faints and scene one of A Raisin in the Sun ends with Mama in distress, shouting Ruth's name.
