STUDY GUIDE PACKET
ENGLISH I CP
Ms. Iacullo/Ms. Johnson Ms. Rivchin/Mrs.Roter
NAME: ______
Period #:
Brief Summary of Play:
Set in Chicago in the 1950s, this three-act play explores the struggles of ordinary people to achieve their desires. An African American family pursuing the American dream of owning a home encounters racism and must decide what is really important in life. This play reflects society before fair-housing and equal-employment laws were enforced, and before most African nations had gained independence from European rulers.
Before you Read:
1. Concept Web
Create a word web or other graphic organizer that explores one or more of the following concepts: dreams, materialism, family, self-esteem.
2. Pair/Share
(1) Imagine that your family suddenly wins the lottery. What does it feel like to have all that money? What will you do with it? What conflicts might arise among family members and others? (2) Your family moves into a new neighborhood, but your neighbors don't want you living there. They do everything to make your life unpleasant in your new home. Do you put up with it or move out?
3. Anticipation Guide (Do you agree or disagree with the following statements and WHY)
1. People should do whatever it takes to accomplish their dreams
2. Life is fair
3. Inherited money should be equally split between family members
4. Finances should be left to the man of the house
5. Racism stopped with the Civil War
6. People learn from their mistakes
7. How you act in a crisis shows who you really are
8. Love conquers all
STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS
DIRECTIONS: Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper. Make sure to give SUPPORT from the play AND answer the following in COMPLETE sentences.
Act I Scene One
1. Why did Walter ask Ruth what was wrong with her?
2. Why was Ruth upset when Walter gave Travis the money?
3. Who are Willy and Bobo?
4. Walter said, "Damn my eggs . . . damn all the eggs that ever was!" Why?
5. Who is Beneatha?
6. Why was Mama getting a check for $10,000?
7. Why did Beneatha say she wouldn't marry George?
8. What was Beneatha's attitude towards God?
9. What happened to Ruth at the end of Act I Scene One?
Act I Scene Two
1. Who is Joseph Asagai?
2. What did Ruth find out at the doctor's office?
3. Why is Asagai's present to Beneatha appropriate?
4. Why is Asagai's nickname appropriate?
5. What does Mama say is "dangerous"?
6. Where did Ruth actually go instead of the doctor's office?
7. Why did Mama call Walter a disgrace to his father's memory?
Act II Scene One
1. What was Beneatha's family doing when George came in?
2. What are "assimilationist Negroes"?
3. What did Mama do with her money?
4. What was Walter's reaction to Mama's purchase? Ruth's reaction?
Act II Scene Two
1. How did Ruth find out Walter hadn't been going to work?
2. Where had Walter been going instead of to work?
3. What did Mama do for Walter?
Act II Scene Three
1. Who was Karl Lindner, and why did he visit the Youngers' house?
2. What was Walter's reaction to Lindner?
3. What presents did Mama get?
4. What news did Bobo bring to Walter?
Act III
1. Why didn't Beneatha want to be a doctor anymore?
2. How did Asagai define "idealists" and "realists"?
3. What does Asagai ask Beneatha to do?
4. What fault does Mama find with herself?
5. What solution does Walter have?
6. Why didn't Walter take the money Lindner offered?
7. Did the Youngers stay or move?
AFTER YOU READ QUESTIONS: (Pick SIX to answer)
1. What does the setting add to the story?
2. Are the characters in A Raisin in the Sun stereotypes? If so, explain the usefulness of employing stereotypes in the story. If they are not, explain how they merit individuality.
3. Describe the relationship between Ruth and Walter.
4. Describe the relationship between Mama and Walter.
5. Describe the relationship between Beneatha and Walter.
6. What function does the character of Travis serve in the play?
7. Explain how the names used in the play are appropriate.
8. Compare and contrast Bennie and Walter.
9. Compare and contrast Asagai and George.
10. Explain how the lyrics to the songs used in the play are appropriate.
11. Who is responsible for Walter's situation? Explain why.
12. Could anything have been gained by including more scenes from the time before the events of the story? If so, what could have been added and for what purpose? If not, explain why not.
13. Why did the author include the element of Ruth's pregnancy? What did it add to the story?
14. Who is the main character in the play? Justify your answer.
15. Walter and Beneatha and Asagai have dreams. What are their dreams?
16. Is the story of A Raisin in the Sun believable? Explain why it is or isn't.
17. Suppose Walter would tell a friend about the events of this play fifteen years from the day they moved into the new house. What do you think he would say?
18. What do you think happened to the Youngers after they moved to Clybourne Park?
VOCABULARY WORDS
· Define each of the words
· Use each word in a sentence
1. undistinguished
2. exasperated
3. viciously
4. vindicated
5. proposition
6. vengeance
7. tentatively
8. furtively
9. futile
10. tyrant
11. mutilated
12. haphazardly
13. inappropriately
14. forlornly
15. arrogant
16. eccentric
17. oppressive
18. cliché
19. sarcastically
20. plaintively
21. amiably
22. ludicrous
CHARACTER LIST
A Raisin in the Sun
Walter Lee Younger (Brother) – The protagonist of the play. Walter is a dreamer. He wants to be rich and devises plans to acquire wealth with his friends, particularly Willy Harris. When the play opens, he wants to invest his father’s insurance money in a new liquor store venture.
Beneatha Younger – Mama’s daughter and Walter’s sister. Beneatha is an intellectual. Twenty years old, she attends college and is better educated than the rest of the Younger family. Some of her personal beliefs and views have distanced her from conservative Mama. She dreams of being a doctor and struggles to determine her identity as a well-educated black woman.
Lena Younger (Mama) – Walter and Beneatha’s mother. The matriarch of the family, Mama is religious, moral, and maternal. She wants to use her husband’s insurance money as a down payment on a house with a backyard to fulfill her dream for her family to move up in theworld.
Ruth Younger – Walter’s wife and Travis’s mother. Ruth takes care of the Youngers’ small apartment. Her marriage to Walter has problems, but she hopes to rekindle their love. She is about thirty, but her weariness makes her seem older.
Travis Younger – Walter and Ruth’s sheltered young son. Travis earns some money by carrying grocery bags and likes to play outside with other neighborhood children, but he has no bedroom and sleeps on the living-room sofa.
Joseph Asagai – A Nigerian student in love with Beneatha. Asagai, as he is often called, is very proud of his African heritage, and Beneatha hopes to learn about her African heritage from him. He eventually proposes marriage to Beneatha and hopes she will return to Nigeria with him.
George Murchison – A wealthy, African-American man who courts Beneatha. The Youngers approve of George, but Beneatha dislikes his willingness to submit to white culture and forget his African heritage. He challenges the thoughts and feelings of other black people through his arrogance and flair for intellectual competition.
Mr. Karl Lindner – The only white character in the play. Mr. Lindner arrives at the Youngers’ apartment from the Clybourne Park Improvement Association. He offers the Youngers a deal to reconsider moving into his (all-white) neighborhood.
Bobo – One of Walter’s partners in the liquor store plan. Bobo appears to be as mentally slow as his name indicates.
Willy Harris – A friend of Walter and coordinator of the liquor store plan. Willy never appears onstage, which helps keep the focus of the story on the dynamics of the Younger family.
Mrs. Johnson – The Youngers’ neighbor. Mrs. Johnson takes advantage of the Youngers’ hospitality and warns themabout moving into a predominately whiteneighborhood.
"What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?"
-- Langston Hughes
· Read the above poem by Hughes
· Cite the literary devices FOUND in this poem
· Connect this poem’s meaning to A Raisin in the Sun