Lorraine Hansberry's debt to Richard Wright can be noted in the similarities between Hansberry's Walter Lee and Wright's Bigger Thomas. Hansberry's play even opens with the ringing of an alarm clock, as does Wright's Native Son. Raisin opens on a Friday morning as everyone is getting ready to leave the apartment for their respective obligations: Walter Lee and Ruth have to go to their jobs; Travis and Beneatha have to go to school.
When the alarm clock rings, Ruth is the first one up, as though it is her responsibility to make certain that everyone else gets up and ready for the day ahead. Ruth is weary and overworked, a parallel to the apartment, which is worn out and weary in appearance from "accommodating the living of too many people for too many years." The apartment consists of only two full-sized rooms, the larger one serving as both the living room and the kitchen. Travis sleeps on the living room couch. Ruth and Walter Lee's bedroom is actually a small alcove just off the kitchen, originally intended to be a "breakfast room" for a smaller, wealthier family. Mama and Beneatha share the only actual bedroom of this "apartment." The single bathroom is shared by their neighbors, the Johnsons, who apparently have a similar "apartment."
