Setting

A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
Question 2

Setting is a very important element of this play because it remains the same throughout and it has a profound effect on the characters of the story.  The author gives information about the setting before the play even starts, in the opening stage directions of Act 1 Scene 1: "Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too often. All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished from the very atmosphere of this room....Time: Sometime between WWI and present. Place: Chicago's Southside" (Hansberry, 23-24).

Mama is proud to be living in the apartment because when she was younger, she "was worried about not being lynched and getting to the North if [she] could and how to stay alive and still have a pinch of dignity too..." (Hansberry, 74).  Mama is living in an actual furnished apartment in the North with none of her old worries, and she bought the apartment a long time ago with her late husband.  She is quite content with it, but still decides to put money towards a new house because she sees how much the run-down apartment is negatively affecting the family.  She even says to the family, "I sped if it wasn't for you all... I would just put that money away or give it to the church or something" (69).
But Ruth complains about the crampedness and the the cockroaches and wonders where the new baby is going to sleep if Travis already sleeps on the living room floor.  The setting stresses Ruth out and negatively affects her mood and her outlook on life, which in turn hurts her marriage and her family relationships.