A Raisin in the Sun, Act Two, Scene 3

Act Two, Scene 3: At this point in the play, Ruth and Bennie are packing up their belongings to get ready to move to their new home. Ruth tells Bennie about how things have gotten better between her and Walter as well as how they went out to the movies the previous night and held hands, which they haven’t done in a while. At that moment, Walter enters the room, turns a record on, grabs Ruth by the arm, and begins to joyfully dance with her. The two dance and have a wonderful with when the doorbell rang. Bennie goes to answer the door because Walter and Ruth were busy dancing. Once the door was opened, Bennie noticed a white man in a dress suit at the foot of the door asking if Mama was there. Bennie replies “no” to the man and Walter invites the man (now introduced as Karl Linder) in to have a seat to talk about the financial matters of the house Mama had bought. Linder tells Walter that the people living in the same community as they would like to, are upset with a colored family moving in and would like to keep it a white establishment. They like things the way they are now and offer Walter the option of selling them their new house for more than the price they had paid for it. Walter becomes upset at this, and tells the man to leave his house. Linder leaves and soon afterwards, Mama enters the room and asked who visited. Walter told her what had happened and she hadn’t seemed to be troubled at all. Walter then tells Mama to open a gift that he, Ruth, and Bennie had gotten her, so she does. Mama was extremely surprised to open a gift of gardening tools to use at their new house. Travis then gives Mama a gift that he had gotten her which was a gardening hat that she loved. At that time, a small man rings the doorbell and happened to be a friend of Walter’s. The man enters the house, sits down, and informs Walter that their business partner was supposed to meet him today to go over plans for their new business, but never showed; implying that the man had run