Colloquial Language


Several literary sources implement a clever colloquial language pattern in order to allow the reader to feel a verisimilitude through the conflicting plots of the event.  In "A Raisin in the Sun"  the expression "Gallllleeee" (p 492)  is used to show the lax speech mechanisms of its time period.  Huck Finn also used this rhetorical device in an even stricter method to make it appear like Huck wrote the book.  The verisimilitude the colloquial language helps to push the grim and very real themes present in these books.  It makes the themes seem less detached from reality and something that we as people should empathize with and analyze below the text.

Another of the text's colloquial impacts is the naming system used by characters.   The characters in a Raisin in the Sun portray intimacy by calling each other "Mama", or "Brother".  The simple family connotations of these words in contrast to calling people such as Ruth, well just "Ruth" exclude her from some of the family's "togetherness" and almost seems to fuel her heavy banter with "Beneatha".  This contrast of "who's in the family" and "who's not" creates almost a dichotomy between the two groups emphasized here just as gender seems to also divide the family into divisive sects.  The harshness of this compared to the reality portrayed through the dialogue truly impresses upon the reader a more realistic and analysis-requiring thematic plot line.