The luxuriousness of Hansberry's writing is apparent in her scene descriptions prior to Act I. An example of ordinary writing might be "The room was overcrowded with old, outdated furniture." Note, as a contrast, Hansberry's more poetic way of saying the same thing: "The Younger living room would be a comfortable and well-ordered room if it were not for a number of indestructible contradictions to this state of being. Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years — and they are tired."
As another example, ordinary writing might be: "The furnishings of this room used to be beautiful but are now faded, ugly, and even tasteless." Hansberry, however, says it this way: "Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family (except perhaps for Mama), the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope — and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride. That was a long time ago. Now the once loved pattern of the couch upholstery has to fight to show itself from under acres of crocheted doilies and couch covers which have themselves finally come to be more important than the upholstery."
An ordinary way of describing the worn out carpet might be to say: "Although they tried, they could not hide the worn out look of the old carpet." Now, note Hansberry's description: "And here a table or a chair has been moved to disguise the worn places in the carpet; but the carpet has fought back by showing its weariness, with depressing uniformity, elsewhere on its surface."
So too, this example: Ordinary: "Everything in this room looks old and unattractive." In contrast, Hansberry: "Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too often. All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished from the very atmosphere of this room."
