Quote 1
BENEATHA (Dropping to her knees)
Well – I do – all right? – thank everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all! (Pursuing him on her knees across the floor) FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME! (1.1.123)
Beneatha sarcastically apologizes for having dreams. To Walter, her dream seems kind of far-fetched. However, Beneatha is determined and she stands up to her brother for her right to want to become a doctor.
Quote 2
BENEATHA
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…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…(3.1.14)
In this lovely little monologue, Beneatha tells us why she dreams of being a doctor – she just wants to help people. To Beneatha, giving people medical attention is one of the most concretely good things a person can do. This just makes it all sadder when Walter makes Beneatha's dreams next to impossible by losing the money.
Quote 3
BENEATHA
I know that’s what you think. Because you are still where I left off. You with all your talk and dreams about Africa! You still think you can patch up the world. Cure the Great Sore of Colonialism – (Loftily, mocking it) with the Penicillin of Independence - ! (3.1.22)
Beneatha mocks Asagai for keeping faith in his dream for Africa. Her idealistic nature was sorely damaged when Walter lost the money for her to go to medical school. The girl struggles to remain hopeful in the face of mounting despair.
Quote 4
BENEATHA
…Did you dream of yachts on Lake Michigan, Brother? Did you see yourself on that Great Day sitting down at the Conference Table, surrounded by all the mighty bald-headed men in America? All halted, waiting, breathless, waiting for your pronouncements on industry? Waiting for you – Chairman of the Board!…I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world! (3.1.60)
Beneatha ridicules her brother for the possibility of ever dreaming that big. She is extremely bitter that he has put his dreams ahead of hers, making it impossible for her to go to medical school.
Quote 5
BENEATHA
Bad? Say anything bad to him? No – I told him he was a sweet boy and full of dreams and everything is strictly peachy keen, as the ofay kids say! (3.1.60)
Beneatha blames her brother's dreams for the family's downfall. She seems to think that he deserves to have bad things said to him and the rest of the family needs to stop babying him.
Quote 6
BENEATHA
What they think we going to do – eat ‘em?
RUTH
No, honey, marry ‘em. (2.3.102-3)
Ruth suggests that segregation is a result of a fear of "miscegenation" (a.k.a. interracial marriage). Some people in the white majority were very concerned about interracial marriage. They saw it as a threat to their culture.
Quote 7
BENEATHA
I see. (Quietly) I also see that everybody thinks it’s all right for Mama to be a tyrant. But all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens! (1.1.288)
Lena and her daughter butt heads over faith. Lena is bothered by the fact that her child might not believe in God. This reflects Lena's traditional values.
Quote 8
BENEATHA
Oh, Mama – The Murchisons are honest-to-God-real-live-rich colored people, and the only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich white people are rich colored people. I thought everybody knew that. I’ve met Mrs. Murchison. She’s a scene! (1.1.264)
George's family is one of the few black families that Beneatha has ever met that doesn't live in poverty. Of course, she is none too impressed with Murchisons and feels like their money has made them total snobs.
Quote 9
BENEATHA
I mean it! I’m just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything? Does he pay tuition? (1.1.277)
Bennie suggests that having faith does not ensure financial security. It could be that the family's poverty and struggles over the years have put a strain on the Christian faith that her mother brought her up in.
Quote 10
BENEATHA
It is my business – where is he going to live, on the roof? (There is silence following the remark as the three women react to the sense of it) (1.2.54)
The family is so poverty-stricken that the birth of a new family member is bad news. There's just no more room in their tiny apartment for another person, and there's barely enough money to feed the ones who already live there.
Quote 11
BENEATHA
And where does it end?
[…]
An end to misery! To stupidity! Don’t you see there isn’t any real progress, Asagai, there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us – our own little mirage that we think is the future. (3.1.26-8)
Beneatha loses faith in the idea of progress after her family faces yet another blow. In this moment at least, she feels everyone's dreams are doomed to fail, that everyone is doomed to suffer.
Quote 12
BENEATHA
Asagai, while I was sleeping in that bed in there, people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody consulted me – they just went out and changed my life! (3.1.32)
Beneatha claims that she suffers at the hands of others. She doesn't realize yet that she has the ability to improve her circumstances.
Quote 13
BENEATHA
Well – we are dead now. All the talk about dreams and sunlight that goes on in this house. It’s all dead now. (3.1.98)
After Walter announces that he's going to accept Lindner's offer, Beneatha believes that all is lost. She feels like there's no hope for her family to ever escape their struggle.
Quote 14
BENEATHA (Laughing herself)
I guess I always think things have more emphasis if they are big, somehow.
RUTH (Looking up at her and smiling)
You and your brother seem to have that as a philosophy of life. (2.3.12-3)
Beneatha and Walter both think big, but in different ways. We kind of get the impression that neither one of them will ever quite be happy with what they have. They'll always want more. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Isn't it good to have goals?
Quote 15
BENEATHA
Get over it? What are you talking about, Ruth? Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet – if I ever get married. (1.1.268)
Beneatha wants to make her very life a challenge to gender stereotypes.
Quote 16
BENEATHA
I said that that individual in that room is no brother of mine.
MAMA
That’s what I thought you said. You feeling like you better than he is today? (BENEATHA does not answer)
Yes? What you tell him a minute ago? That he wasn’t a man? Yes? You give him up for me? You done wrote his epitaph too – like the rest of the world? Well, who give you the privilege? (3.1.108-9)
Mama suggests that a woman’s support and faith in a man can make or break him.