1:15:49 - the cac 1st cac offer
1:36:28 Walter Lee loses the money..sees how the world works and calls the cac back for the money offer but big momma forces him to do it in front of his son.
the last part where he turns down the cac money..
At the beginning of the play, Walter and Beneatha's father has recently died, and Mama is waiting for a life insurance check for $10,000. Walter has a sense of entitlement to the money, but Mama has religious objections to alcohol and Beneatha has to remind him it is Mama's call how to spend it. Eventually Mama puts some of the money down on a new house, choosing an all-white neighborhood over a black one for the practical reason that it happens to be much cheaper. Later she relents and gives the rest of the money to Walter to invest with the provision that he reserve $3,000 for Beneatha's education. Walter passes the money on to Willy's naive sidekick Bobo, who gives it to Willy, who absconds with it, depriving Walter and Beneatha of their dreams, though not the Youngers of their new home. Meanwhile, Karl Lindner, a white representative of the neighborhood they plan to move to, makes a generous offer to buy them out. He wishes to avoid neighborhood tensions over interracial population, which to the three women's horror Walter prepares to accept as a solution to their financial setback. Lena says that while money was something they try to work for, they should never take it if it was a person's way of telling them they weren't fit to walk the same earth as them.
Walter redeems himself and black pride at the end by changing his mind and not accepting the buyout offer, stating that the family is proud of who they are and will try to be good neighbors. The play closes with the family leaving for their new home but uncertain future.
here's the issue and why its not as big a dilemma as the play makes it...
they get an ins check for 10k...
momma put down 3500 for the house..
she gives the rest 6500 to walter but tells him to put 3000 aside for his sister.
leaving him 3500 to invest. but he never deposited the money and gave it all to his "business partner" who promptly absconds with it.
now the cac offer to buy the house from them was suppose to be at a profit.. which means what...I'm assuming the offer isn't for the value of the house itself but to buy back her down payment on it....she put 3500 down so they would pay them maybe 4000 probably as high as 4500...maybe.
it wouldn't be enough. Momma chose that house because it was the cheapest since all the houses in black neighborhoods cost twice as much. Even if they took a cac offer of 6500 which is all the money walter lost they would still be less the 3500 momma put down. Unless they stayed in that dinky ass apartment and work it from there..but that was her dream to get out of that apartment.
there were 3 main aspirations in the story:
*momma's dream of getting a house
*walter's dream of owning a business
*beneatha's dream of being a doctor (or at least educated professional)
10k covered that.. but anything less than that means only one dream can happen. Mommas not going to find a home cheaper in a black neighborhood. Walter blew his chance already so Beneatha's education is the only one that can happen (but she comes off flighty as fuck)
So anything less than 10k (which they would NOT get for the cac house under any circumstances) would be operating at a loss for all of them. They used a dramatic device to make SEEM like there was a choice but there really wasn't.
BUT heres the question..IF they were offered 10k should they have taken it??? If it were YOU in that situation would YOU take it???
Last edited: