“slubborn”. This is a combination of “sloppy” and “stubborn” and is used byRuth to describe her son Travis.

As someone without much in the way of formal education, Ruth appears not to realize that “slubborn” isn't actually a real word. And yet there's something about that word that neatly encapsulates Travis' whole personality. For here is a child who, as with many children, can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be. And, also like many children, he can be quite sloppy too. Put the two together and you have a “slubborn” young boy indeed.

To some extent, Ruth is rather jealous of her son, and it's not hard to see why. In the very first scene of the play, Travis manages to wheedle fifty cents out of his father despite the fact that Ruth emphatically told him that he wasn't getting a penny. Yet Travis' stubbornness paid off handsomely.

Even so, by calling him “slubborn”, his mother wants to remind him that, no matter how clever he thinks he is by getting what he wants, he still has serious character flaws. After all, stubbornness can sometimes be a virtue, but not sloppiness.

An additional literary device in the play is irony, such as in the case of Mr. Lindner's visit to the Youngers. This is an example of situational irony, as Mr. Lindner insults and ostracizes the Youngers on account of their race, going against the expectations he establishes by introducing himself as a member of the welcoming committee.

The play's title is also an allusion to the Langston Hughes poem, "Harlem," which discusses the nature of the deferred dreams of Black Americans. This allusion helps further illuminate the themes of the play.

Perhaps the dominant literay device is allusion, for the author uses as the title of her play a line from Langston Hughes' poem "A Dream Deferred." This poem, which I quote below, presents the central problem of the play, which concerns the frustration and possible violence that results when black people are at once promised the American Dream by virtue of being an American but denied that dream because they are black.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

One motif is the Younger apartment as the central setting of the family's unity. It is small with only one window and cramped. It's where the kids were raised. This is where the vital activity of the family occurs throughout the play where they struggle with all their conflicts. It's appropriate that at the end, Mama stays behind to take a last look at the apartment.

As far as symbolism goes, Mama's plant is the most obvious one, representing Mama's care and dream for her family. Her dedication to the plant shows Mama's hope that her dream for the family will come true. Just as the plant has struggled to survive, so has the family.

When Beneatha cuts her hair, she cuts it and dons an afro that represents her heritage. Her new hair symbolizes her beliefs of not conforming to white society's standards as she searches for her identity by looking at the past of her roots in Africa.

Foreshadowing is used at the end of Scene One when Ruth faints. She later confirms her pregnancy which causes the family members to react in different ways. Their reactions give us a look into how their struggles affect them, but mostly how having a baby, usually a happy event in most families, affects each one of them. Their reactions tell us something about each of the characters.

Lorraine Hansberry uses Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem" as an epigraph to her play "A Raisin in the Sun."  An epigraph is when an author chooses to place a quote or poem, etc. by another author that serves to introduce a theme in the work.  For instance, "Harlem" is filled with metaphors and similes about what happens to a dream deferred (at one point, the speaker asks if it dries up like a raisin in the sun).  Hansberry, therefore, uses an allusion to Hughes' poem as her title, and also adopts the theme of the poem as the theme of her play.

Playwright Lorraine Hansberry used lots of figurative language in her play A Raisin in The Sun, like simile and personification.

A simile is a figure of speech that compares unlike things using the words like or as. For example, consider how Mama is talking to Ruth about Walter’s behavior at the end of the play. She says, "He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain." This is a simile because Mama is using the word like to compare Walter's change to that of a rainbow coming out in the sky. She says this right after Walter makes the mature decision for his family to refuse Mr. Lindner's money. This moment brings Mama a sense of hope and peace, just like a rainbow does after a storm.

Hansberry also used a lot of personification in this play. Personification is a form of figurative language in which a writer attributes human qualities to something that is not human. For instance, recall the description of the Youngers' living room at the beginning of act 1, scene 1. It states, "The sole natural light the family may enjoy in the course of a day is only that which fights its way through this little window." Sunlight cannot fight like a person can fight, but by assigning this human action to something that is not human, Hansberry emphasizes how hard it is for light to get into the apartment.

The dialogue in A Raisin in the Sun uses numerous figures of speech that are commonly found in everyday speech. Lorraine Hansberry incorporates this type of figurative language to make the characters seem to be real people. Metaphors are frequently employed. Ruth, for example, refers to Walter’s friends as “clowns” because of their loud behavior. To indicate that she would like a more comfortable life, she uses the metaphor of “Buckingham Palace” for a luxurious home she would prefer. Walter uses the metaphor of “choking to death” to describe his feelings of being held back in his life. When Mama talks to Ruth about Walter’s idea of the liquor store, she rejects the concept of selling liquor as immoral, saying “I don’t want that on my ledger.” Similes also appear in their speech. Mama combines one with an allusion and personification when she says that yesterday she had seen a cockroach “marching… like Napoleon.”

Ruth also uses hyperbole, extreme exaggeration, when she imitates Travis’s speech when he is annoyed with her: “I wouldn’t kiss that woman goodbye for nothing in this world….” Beneatha also uses hyperbole when talking about how her mother might use the insurance money: “I don’t care if she wants to buy… a rocket ship.” Also, in challenging her brother’s constant criticism, she asks if he wants her to quite school or “just drop dead.” When she learns that Ruth is pregnant, she asks where the new baby is going to sleep, “on the roof?”

There are several examples of figurative language in A Raisin in the Sun. For example, in act I, Ruth uses a simile, saying, "I'm just sleepy as the devil." In the same act, Ruth says about her son, Travis, "'Bout to march out of here with that head looking just like chickens slept in it!" She uses a simile to compare her son's messy hair to a chicken's nest. Ruth often uses similes. She later says of Beneatha that she is "fresh—just fresh as salt." She is comparing Beneatha's attitude, which Ruth considers rude, to the bitterness of salt. Ruth's use of figurative language are the kinds of expressions that a person might have used in previous generations.

The characters in the play also use metaphors. For example, Beneatha says, "And then there are all those prophets who would lead us out of the wilderness . . . —into the swamps!" She sarcastically compares her brother, Walter, to a prophet who will lead the family into bad times, represented by the swamps. This metaphor is also ironic because a prophet is supposed to lead people to better times, but Beneatha suggests Walter will lead the family to disastrous ends.

Let's start with Mama's plant. This plant shows a great example of symbolism.

• Mama is completely devoted to this houseplant. As with her family, she provides constant care and nurture to the plant. As anyone who has tended to a plant knows, there are requirements and maintenance needed for growth. This small plant represents the bigger dreams she sees for her family, despite obstacles of racism, oppression, and poverty. She says that the plant "ain’t never had enough sunshine or nothing." Here the reader can see the relationship between the plant and her family. In what seems like futile conditions, there is a hope and encouragement. However, Mama is realistic, understanding that this simple houseplant is the closest she will get to having her garden. She leaves her apartment, houseplant in hand, in a final act of resilience in the face of her adversities. The reader can assume she will bring this plant to a new home to face new challenges, but the perseverance held within this symbol remains.

Lastly, let's focus on the title. A Raisin in the Sun, a metaphor derived from the Langston Hughes poem "Harlem."

• Hansberry's use of this metaphor is used to connect a broken dream to a dried up raisin, devoid and empty of what it once was. Whether it is Mama, Walter, Ruth, Beneatha, or Travis, the characters in this story are dreamers. These characters want something more, something better, something that is fulfilling. The poverty and oppression faced by these characters is a direct danger to these dreams. Hansberry's title forces the reader to immediately confront this danger, to see the impact of broken dreams and their potentially to demoralize and destroy those who hold hope when hope is already so difficult to grasp.