Act 2 Scene 2 Notes

- It's a Friday night a few weeks after Mama bought the house
- Beneatha and George come home from another show, George wants to get intimate and starts kissing Beneatha, Beneatha just wanted to talk to George, George gets upset and says some very mean things to her about her body.
-  Beneatha kicks him out
- Mrs. Johnson comes over, Mama and her don't agree on much but both are too nice to fight with each other
- Beneatha is rude to Mrs. Johnson
- Mrs. Johnson goes on a big rant on how educated kids are rude
- Walter skips work for three days in a row and just drives around or walks around and then goes to the bar and get drunk.
- Mama and Walter have a long talk and she gives him 6,500$ and 3000 of it he has to put in a savings account for his sisters school and the other 3500 is his to do whatever he wants with.
- Walter is so happy, he tells his family he is done drinking and he starts talking about all his dreams for the future and whats gonna happen with the money.
- The scene ends with Walter describing to Travis what the future will be like for him and he ends by telling Travis that in the future he will be able to go to any school he wants and do anything he wants for a job.

Act 2 Scene 1 Notes

- Later in the same day that Mama and Walter got into a big fight and Mama called him a disgrace.
- Ruth is ironing when she is surprised by the robe that Beneatha is wearing
- Beneatha is doing a Nigerian folk dance
- Walter comes home very drunk and starts talking gibberish to Ruth and Beneatha
- George, Beneathas other boyfriend comes over to pick up Beneatha for the theatre
- Beneatha got a haircut and Walter makes fun of her
- Walter starts making fun of George and his white "faggoty" shoes
- Walter also lies to George about going to New York
- Walter then gives a big speech to George about how he and his dad should meet with him and listen to some of his business ideas
- Walter obviously gets very mad but Beneatha comes out in time and leaves with George to go to the theatre.
- Walter and Ruth get into a big arguement then they seem to talk it out, then Mama comes home and Walter starts jumps up immiediatly from kissing Ruth and starts nagging Mama about the money, asking where she went.
- Mama ignores him for a while then finnaly tells him she tended some business.
- Travis comes home
- Then we find out she bought a house because she told Travis and then the whole family.
- Everyone is very happy except Walter
- The house is in a "white neighborhood"
- Walter gets very mad at Mama and says she butchered his dreams and walks out angrily
- Scene ends

In class snapshots of each character

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14egk8OUMd9-CuBEXgFbozziafRr6DmFOhisxezeT0FM/edit

In class notes

Mama-Lena:

Nickname is mama, 65 years old, African American.
Short, kinda fat
Conflict with Walter Lee about the money
She sleeps with Beneatha in a bedroom
Loving, caring, wise, strong, religious
Constantly fights with Walter lee over the check
Makes Travis's bed for him
Yells at Beneatha for not believing in god
Dreams of a big house
She is a lion because she is strong and she is the leader of the family

Walter Lee:

35 years old
Tall black man, not soft-spoken
Looks like Kevin heart and Kanye west
He is a brother, father, and son
He works as a chauffeur for rich people
He has conflicts with Mama and Beneatha about the check
Anger Stress and Love
He gives Travis money
He always gets in fights
Very frustrated about where he lives, he wants to give his family a better life
Important: money, Travis, and the liquor store

Ruth:
married to Walter
she is about 30 years old
she does the work of a stay at home mom but works as a nanny in another house
She finds out she is pregnant in scene 2
She cooks food for everyone
She thinks about abortion
Have a better home and bed for her son
She would give the money to mama

In class group work

In class work: Ryan, Logan, Tony

1. Beneatha

2. beanie

3. 20 years old

4. Short, short curly dark hair, skinny

5. Lazily and hunched over

6. Raspy and high pitched always sounds sarcastic 

7.

8. Mama(mother),Walter(father), Walter Lee(Brother), Travis(nephew), assagai(boyfriend)

9. She has a sibling conflict with Walter and with Travis. She also has a conflict with her mom, Mama, about her boyfriend.

10. With Lena/Mama in a bedroom

11. Study in college.

12.  Beneatha makes no contributions to the family’s wellbeing because she does not have a job. 

13. Stubborn, Lazy, Social, Antagonistic,  

14. 3-6 major emotions that your character often experiences- Sleepy, Angry, smart

15. A chart of major actions that your character undergoes in scenes 1 and 2 -1. Conflict with her brother. 2. She brought her boyfriend to the apartment. 

16. 3 important quotes from scene 1 and 3 important quotes from scene 2

Scene 1 

“ Lovely. Lovely. And you know, biology is the greatest.”

“(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.”

“You—you are a nut. Thee is mad, boy”

Scene 2

“There’s really only one way to get rid of them, Mama...Set fire to this building!”

“ Yes … we’ve all got acute ghetto-itis. (She smiles and comes toward him, finding a cigarette and sitting) So—sit down! No! Wait! (She whips the spray gun off sofa where she had left it and puts the cushions back. At last perches on arm of sofa. He sits) So, how was Canada?”

“Oh, Asagai! … You got them for me! … How beautiful … and the records too! (She lifts out the robes and runs to the mirror with them and holds the drapery up in front of herself)”

17. Grew up with mama, Walter, and Walter Lee. She loved getting on Walter Lee’s nerves and always bothered him.  she was always interested in science and math and was in love with reading.

18. Education, Mama, Joseph/ Asagai

19.to become a  Doctor

20. Med school, A job, Move out of the apartment. 

21. Spend it on her college costs or med school

22. 1.BENEATHA Well—neither is God. I get sick of hearing about God. 2.BENEATHA I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet—if I ever get married. 3.BENEATHA I don’t flit! I—I experiment with different forms of expression—

23. A playlist of 8 songs that represent your character in some way: 

1. Mandy goes to Med school https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858500325/

2. The lazy song https://youtu.be/fLexgOxsZu0

3.Inspired by Miley Cyrus

4.I Wanna Go to School-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bg0DZeJbg

5. Schools out- alicia cooper

6. Stubborn love- The Lumineers

7.bad guy- Billie Eilish 

8. I Hate my Brother(Theme song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7koGShnTZ0 

*24. Beneatha would be a cat because she is smart but also lazy. 

25. Einstein, Amelia Earheart, Barack Obama

Scene 2 notes

Scene Two Notes:

Setting: In the apartment in Southside Chicago it is a Saturday morning

Walter, Travis, Mama, and Beneatha are all home, Ruth is at the doctor

Scene starts with Travis wanting to go outside. On his way out he hits Beneatha with a stick because she is killing roaches.

Ruth is very dizzy from the pregnancy and lies down.

Beneatha calls her boyfriend Joseph Asagai, he comes over and gives her, his sisters robe from Nigeria where he is from.


Ruth comes home from doctor, she is pregnant, Mama and Beneatha figured it out before Ruth even said anything. Ruth might abort the baby because Walter won't talk to her and the family doesn't have room in the house.

Later in the scene while Travis is outside him and his friends find a rat the "size of a cat", his friends hit it and made it bleed before it got away.

After Travis gets soap from the neighbor for Mama, the check finally comes.

Travis runs down to the mail box and gets the check and hands it to mama.

Walter comes home and finds out about the check, he begs mama for the money so he can invest in the liquor store, Mama firmly says no. Walter gets very angry as expected.

Mama gives Walter a good long talk and gives him a few lessons and calms him down, and tells him to go talk to Ruth about the baby so she doesn't abort it,

Walter has no words/says nothing. Mama is very upset and calls him a disgrace to his fathers memory. Scene two ends after this.

In class writing

A dream: A dream I have for myself for the next five years is to graduate from Cheshire Academy and go to a good college in the South.

Big dream: my dream for the future is to open/own some type of business with either my dad or my brother.

I would react by not giving up and trying to push through the obstacle or find a way around it and keep going on with my life.

I think I am most like Walter Lee because he wants to open a business which is exactly what I want to do when I grow up.

I think it would be very difficult to me at first, but i think i would eventually realize that this is life and I have to accept it for how it is and just do my best to make my life better and my famlies.

Notes on A Raisin in the Sun

- Act 1: Scene 1 starts with a description of the house the characters are living in.
- 4 characters are mentioned: Mama and her daughter Beneatha and her son Walter Lee and his wife Ruth
-All the characters live in the same house
- The setting is in Chicago's Southside and sometime between world war II and the present
- Travis is another character who lives in the house, he is Ruth's son
- Walter is another character and he is Walter lee's dad and Beneathas father, he is married to Lena/Mama.
- Ruth's age is about 30
- The story starts in the morning Ruth is making eggs and waking up her son Travis and she is talking with Walter about why he always smokes cigarettes before he eats in the morning
- While Travis is eating breakfast he gets in argument with his mom Ruth about money
- He needs 15 cents for school and his mom doesn't have it for him.
- This shows that the family is struggling financially which I feel is gonna be ones of themes of this play, because it represents the struggles families face when they are struggling financially.
Walter who is married to Lena