Beneatha was describing how her whole family has this bug she calls Ghetto-it
is, which explains the actions of all the main characters in the first act. When
Beneatha said this she was just welcoming Asagi into her home. He asked her what
was wrong and she responded with the acute ghetto-it is term. Ruth, to me, is
acting the most on this use of speech. I would believe she suffers the most from
this. Earlier in the first scene she was yelling at Walter for giving Travis so
much money to bring to school. Ruth is always preaching about how the rich white
people have it and complaining about her life. And every time Travis asked when
the paycheck was coming she would just respond with don’t worry about it.
Walter is Ruth’s husband and a father of one to Travis. Unlike Ruth Walter
takes money not as seriously, while Ruth thinks they need to save every penny so
they won’t end up in the gutter. Walter handles the income of money in their
family and you could say Beneatha handles the out flow. Next in the line of
Ghetto-itis would be Mama. Mama lives with the family and does house chores to
help out Ruth. Mama doesn’t spend much and she doesn’t eat much. Mama
clearly marked her position in the household. When Beneatha was questioning the
existence of God Mama got up and slapped her across the face. She is a serious
character. The one person that makes the best of what they have would probably
be Travis. Travis is the kind of person that makes the best of a bad situation.
When Beneatha was spraying under the couch for roaches, Travis was telling her
not to worry about it because they weren’t harming them. Even though he seems
to always be happy he has no idea of what money really means. Beneatha was the
one who said the family suffers from acute Ghetto-itis. She was meaning to say
that the family acts like they live in the ghetto and are horribly poor, but
when in real life they are actually making a lot of money. So Beneatha does the
one thing she is good at which is spending money. She has paid for horseback
riding lessons and is about to take guitar lessons. Everybody questions her
spending in her family. Beneatha may think that she is better than her own
family. I think Beneatha does think she is better than her own flesh and blood
and that is why she is making statements like the ones she made in Act 1.