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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Mechanical People:
There is a motif throughout the play of the characters being described as acting automatically or mechanically, as if they are going through prescribed motions or as if they are more machine than person. For example, Ruth criticizes Walter for smoking before breakfast, saying so in a way that is "too automatic to deserve emphasis," whereas Travis makes his bed "stiffly" and "mechanically." Hansberry’s recurring descriptions likening the characters’ actions to machines highlights the quotidian nature of the Youngers’ morning routine. The morning that is portrayed at the start of A Raisin in the Sun could be (impending insurance payout notwithstanding) any other morning, just another day filled with school or work.
This motif underscores the weariness of the Youngers, who are exhausted not just by the long days that make up their life but also by the oppression they constantly face. Mindless repetition is in many ways a product of exhaustion, with fatigue robbing people of their joyous spark. The play illustrates not just the fatigue of the work week, however, but also the exhaustion that results from living in a world of racism and sexism. Ultimately, this motif highlights each member of the Younger family’s respective dreams, as their dreams are, more than anything else, wholly different from their current day-to-day lives. Their repetitive, mechanical movements would be broken through the newness of their hopes and dreams, if they managed to achieve them.
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Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Sun and Sunlight:
Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, as the title hints at, there is a motif of sun and sunlight. This motif is most clearly evident in the recurring symbol of Mama’s little plant, which she cares for in part because it is the closest thing to her dream garden that she can have in the apartment. The plant survives with the meager sunlight available on the window sill of their apartment, but the play’s conclusion promises the garden of Mama’s dreams. Not only does the house she purchases have a small yard, but the Youngers buy Mama gardening tools and a hat.
The Youngers’ apartment, however, is described as having little sunlight before the plant is ever mentioned. Mama's plant notwithstanding, sunlight connotes life and growth. The apartment having only a little sunlight represents the limited potential for growth and prosperity for the Youngers in their current situation. The title of the play refers to sunlight: Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem” questions if dreams deferred “dry up / like a raisin in the sun?” The same sun that gives life also takes it; the same sun that creates grapes also dries them into raisins. Hansberry’s play urges the reader to hold on to dreams at all costs. A Raisin in the Sun would, ideally, have Hughes’s rhetorical question remain unanswered; insofar as there is an answer, it is that dreams wither but do not die as they await the right conditions within which they can blossom.
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Act 1, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Apartment as Rat Trap:
Rats and rat traps are a recurring motif in A Raisin in the Sun. Mama compares the apartment to a rat trap in a particularly poignant metaphor:
Ruth: Well, Lord knows, we’ve put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now…
Mama: [...] "Rat trap"—yes that’s all it is
The apartment is metaphorically a “rat trap” in that Big Walter and Mama initially move in believing they will soon leave, but are never quite able to do so—they are effectively trapped there. This metaphor unflatteringly equates the Youngers to animals through a self-comparison that emphasizes how downtrodden they feel. Constantly facing adversity as working-class Black Americans, there is nothing they can do to escape the apartment. Indeed, the insurance payout is transformative precisely because there are no quotidian means through which they could get the necessary money to move into a house.
When describing the house as a rat trap, Mama recalls her and Big Walter’s shared dream of moving into a house together. While she is saddened by the end of her reflection, the moment nevertheless influences her decision to spend a large portion of the 10,000 dollars on a down payment for a house. If the house is a trap, they have no choice but to escape, and thus the metaphor presents Mama (and the rest of the family in the final scenes of the play) as having made the right decision in spending at least a portion of the insurance payout on finally escaping the trap.
Rats come up again and again throughout the play: for example, Travis chases a rat outside, and Walter is called a “toothless rat” by Beneatha after being conned and prostrating himself. The fact that Walter is compared to a rat after squandering some of the money that otherwise allows the Youngers to achieve their dream of moving into a house reinforces the broader metaphor discussed above: the apartment is a trap that must be escaped.
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