Raisin In The Sun Figurative Language

During the 1950s in Chicago blacks were in poverty. The city was filled with discrimination, racism and segregation. The Younger family was a black family living in a one bedroom apartment in Chicago at the time. They had big dreams but lack of money. In the play, A raisin in the sun, Lorraine Hansberry created the central idea of “feeling trapped” in the character Mama through the setting, symbolism, and figurative language. Lorraine Hansberry created the sense of feeling trapped in the character Mama. Mama feels trapped because she and her husband were never able to live out their dream. “I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks wasn’t planning on living here no more than a year” (Hansberry, 19). They planned to live in the little apartment just for a year to save up. “We were going to set away little by little, don’t you know, and buy a little place out in Morgan Park” (Hansberry, 19). Mama and Big Walter wanted to buy a house in a nice neighborhood after living the apartment for a while. The fact that they couldn’t move out and had to stay at the little apartment made mama feels trapped.

Mama feels like the plant is all she has close to the garden she wants. “Lord, if this little old plant don’t get more sun than it’s been getting it aint never going to see spring again” (Hansberry, 16). The plant and sunlight represents Mamas happiness in the dark dreary apartment. “Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one” (Hansberry, 26). Mama kept the plan to try and fill her empty feeling of not having what she always wanted. Symbolism is just one way the author relates theme to the