Quotations: Identify the speaker, to whom he/she is speaking & the significance and/or meaning of the quotation.
- “Here I am a giant – surrounded by ants! Ants who can’t even understand what it is the giant is talking about.”
Speaker:WalterTo whom they are speaking:George & Ruth
Meaning/significance:shows how Walter feels that his big dreams/plans are not supported by the family
- “…and forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all…forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.”
Speaker:BeneathaTo whom they are speaking:Walter
Meaning/significance:shows her frustration with Walter and their family’s situation
- “Once upon a time freedom used to be life…”
Speaker:MamaTo whom they are speaking:Walter
Meaning/significance:her response to Walter saying that “money is life”; illustrates the perspective of the older generation that had to fight to overcome more than the younger generation
- “It’s how you can be sure that the world’s most liberated women are not liberated at all. You all talk about it too much.”
Speaker:Joseph AssaigaiTo whom they are speaking:Beneatha
Meaning/significance:American women view themselves as being liberated, yet they all conform to the same societal standards
- “Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs.”
Speaker:WalterTo whom they are speaking:Ruth
Meaning/significance:shows how Walter feels that his big dreams/plans are not supported by the family
- “There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.”
Speaker:MamaTo whom they are speaking:Beneatha
Meaning/significance:illustrates Mama’s compassion as well as her wisdom; shows how you need to support your family
- “That money is made out of my father’s flesh…”
Speaker: WalterTo whom they are speaking:Bobo
Meaning/significance:Walter’s reaction to learning that the money is gone
- “There simply is no blasted God – there is only man and it is he who makes miracles.”
Speaker:BeneathaTo whom they are speaking:Mama
Meaning/significance:illustrates her differences fromMama as well as the differences between the younger generation and the older generation
- “Sometimes it hard to let the future begin.”
Speaker:To whom they are speaking:
Meaning/significance:
- “…we all tied up in a race of people that don’t know how to do nothing but moan, pray and have babies!”
Speaker:WalterTo whom they are speaking:Ruth
Meaning/significance:expressing his frustration at the lack of support of his dreams/ambitions
- “He finally came into his manhood today, didn’t he?”
Speaker:MamaTo whom they are speaking:Ruth
Meaning/significance:responding to Walter’s decision to turn down Mr. Linder’s offer and move the family into the new house; Walter has finally figured out that family should be his priority, not dreams
- “I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know – and make them whole again. This was truly being God…”
Speaker:BeneathaTo whom they are speaking:Assaigai
Meaning/significance:talking about her goal/dream of becoming a doctor
- “Baby, don’t nothing happen for you in this world ‘less you pay somebody off”
Speaker:WalterTo whom they are speaking:Ruth
Meaning/significance:talking about his plan to purchase a liquor store