Question

The flashback in line 9 (“When I . . . face”) to Beneatha’s childhood makes her current disillusionment more poignant by showing the

a. happiness of her carefree early years

b. idealism and empathy she once possessed

c. long-term damage caused by a traumatic experience

d. magnitude and persistence of her family’s poverty

e. origin of her sometimes reckless personality


This excerpt is from a play that debuted on Broadway in 1959. Shortly after learning that her older brother, Walter, has lost a large sum of money that was supposed to help pay for her medical school, Beneatha is visited by Asagai, a Nigerian exchange student whom she has been dating.

(1) BENEATHA: He gave away the money, Asagai . . .

(2) ASAGAI: Who gave away what money?

(3) BENEATHA: The insurance money. My brother gave it away.

(4) ASAGAI: Gave it away?

(5) BENEATHA: He made an investment! With a man even Travis [her nephew] wouldn’t have trusted.

(6) ASAGAI: And it’s gone?

(7) BENEATHA: Gone!

(8) ASAGAI: I’m very sorry . . . And you, now?

(9) BENEATHA: Me? . . . Me? . . . Me, I’m nothing . . . Me. When I was very small . . . we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice-covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day . . . and it was very dangerous you know . . . far too steep . . . and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk . . . and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us . . . And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and they sewed it all up . . . and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face . . . I never got over that . . .

(10) ASAGAI: What?

(11) BENEATHA: That that was what one person could do for another, fix him up—sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world . . . I wanted to do that. 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 . . .

(12) ASAGAI: You wanted to be God?

(13) BENEATHA: No—I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt . . .

(14) ASAGAI: And you’ve stopped caring?

(15) BENEATHA: Yes—I think so.

(16) ASAGAI: Why?

(17) BENEATHA: Because it doesn’t seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind—I mean this thing of sewing up bodies or administering drugs. Don’t you understand? It was a child’s reaction to the world. I thought that doctors had the secret to all the hurts . . . That’s the way a child sees things—or an idealist.

(18) ASAGAI: Children see things very well sometimes—and idealists even better.

(19) BENEATHA: I know that’s what you think. Because you are still where I left off—you still care. This is what you see for the world, for Africa. You with the dreams of the future will patch up all Africa—you are going to cure the Great Sore of colonialism with Independence—

(20) ASAGAI: Yes!

(21) BENEATHA: Yes—and you think that one word is the penicillin of the human spirit: “Independence!” But then what?

(22) ASAGAI: That will be the problem for another time. First we must get there.

(23) BENEATHA: And where does it end?

(24) ASAGAI: End? Who even spoke of an end? To life? To living?

(25) BENEATHA: An end to misery!

(26) ASAGAI: [Smiling.] You sound like a French intellectual.

(27) BENEATHA: No! I sound like a human being who just had her future taken right out of her hands! While I was sleeping in my bed in there, things were happening in this world that directly concerned me—and nobody asked me, consulted me—they just went out and did things—and changed my life.

A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry, Random House LLC, 1959.

Answer 1

If your reading this: I stole all your juice!

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The flashback in Lorraine Hansberry's play illuminates Beneatha's childhood idealism and empathy, contrasting with her current disillusionment.

Step-by-step explanation:

The flashback in line 9 ("When I . . . face") from Lorraine Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun" highlights Beneatha's past idealism and empathy, showcasing b. idealism and empathy she once possessed. This memory of her childhood explains her dream of becoming a doctor to help people, akin to how someone helped Rufus after his accident. The trauma of her brother's financial loss brings a sense of disillusionment contrasting sharply with her childhood aspirations and underscores the poignancy of her current state.