What happens to a dream
deferred?

Or
fester like a sore...

She calls to the boy, between yawns, in a slightly
muffled voice.

She crosses to her son and gives him a good, final,
rousing shake.

(Her son sits up at last, in a
stupor of sleepiness) I say hurry up, Travis!

She wipes her face with a moist cloth and runs her fingers through her sleep-disheveled hair in a vain effort and ties an apron around her housecoat.

He is a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties, inclined to quick nervous movements and
erratic speech habits and always in his voice there is a quality of indictment.

He is a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties, inclined to quick nervous movements and erratic speech habits and always in his voice there is a quality of
indictment.

(The boy gives her an
exasperated look for her lack of understanding, and eats grudgingly)

(The boy finally turns around and rolls his eyes at her, knowing the mood has changed and he is
vindicated; he does not, however, move toward her yet) Not for nothing in this world!

Walter stands and stares back at her with
defiance, and suddenly reaches into his pocket again on an afterthought)

(Shrugging) So you would rather be Mr. Arnold than be his
chauffeur?

Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family's insofar as education has
permeated her sense of English and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally at last won out in her inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside.

Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family's insofar as education has permeated her sense of English and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally at last won out in her
inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside.

Her speech is a mixture of many things; it is different from the rest of the family's insofar as education has permeated her sense of English and perhaps the Midwest rather than the South has finally at last won out in her inflection; but not altogether, because over all of it is a soft
slurring and transformed use of vowels which is the decided influence of the Southside.

She closes the door with a sleepy
vengeance and crosses to the table and sits down a little defeated.

She crosses through the room, goes to the window, opens it, and brings in a
feeble little plant growing doggedly in a small pot on the window sill.

She crosses through the room, goes to the window, opens it, and brings in a feeble little plant growing
doggedly in a small pot on the window sill.

But whether I go into business selling it to 'em is, and I don't want that on my
ledger this late in life.

(She waits several seconds, trying to make up her mind about something, and looks at RUTH a little
tentatively before going on) Been thinking that we maybe could meet the notes on a little old two-story somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play in the summertime, if we use part of the insurance for a down payment and everybody kind of pitch in.

Ruth (Studying her mother-in-law
furtively and concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage without seeming to): Well, Lord knows, we've put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now.

(Mama and Ruth look at each other and burst into
raucous laughter) Don't worry I don't expect you to understand.

Brother isn't really crazy yet he he's an elaborate
neurotic.

(She looks out of the window as she replaces the plant) Lord, ain't nothing as
dreary as the view from this window on a
dreary day, is there?

Beneatha, in dungarees, with a handkerchief tied around her face, is spraying
insecticide into the cracks in the walls.

Travis, the sole
idle one, is leaning on his arms, looking out of the window.

Travis (Safely behind the
bastion of Mama) That's right look out, now!

Ruth comes in forlornly and pulls off her coat with
dejection.

Beneatha (Turning to him, not laughing) Yes (Her face is
quizzical, profoundly disturbed)

Beneatha (With
incredulity) You—you sent all the way home for me?

Asagai: It's how you can be sure that the world's most
liberated women are not
liberated at all.

Beneatha: You're
evading.

She sets the headdress on
haphazardly and then notices her hair again and clutches at it and then replaces the headdress and frowns at herself.

Ruth (turns to her, with kind
exasperation): You've gone and got yourself upset.

Walter (sits down and grasps it close and counts off the zeros) Ten thousand dollars (He turns suddenly,
frantically to his mother and draws some papers out of his breast pocket) Mama, look.