Act I, Scene One

The opening scene of A Raisin in the Sun occurs on a Friday morning when the members of the Younger family are preparing to go to school or work. During this scene, as in the opening scene of most plays, several key pieces of information are revealed. The family's inadequate living situation is conveyed through the fact that they share a bathroom with other tenants in their apartment house and through the fact that Travis must sleep on the sofa in the living room As crucial, Walter's conversation elicits the fact that Mama is expecting a significant check in the mail the following day life insurance paid to them because Mama's husband and Walter and Beneatha's father has died. The tension over money is also evident when Ruth refuses to give Travis fifty cents he needs for school. Walter gives him the money, along...