Criticism on the Production

When Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, came into production, it was met by critics with varying appraisals. On the anti-integrationist side was Harold Cruse, who deplored Raisin as “the artistic, aesthetic and class-inspired culmination of the efforts of the Harlem left-wing literary and cultural in-group to achieve integration of the Negro in the arts.”

Cruse also claimed that A Raisin in the Sun demonstrated that “the Negro playwright has lost the intellectual and, therefore, technical and creative, ability to deal with his own special ethnic group materials in dramatic form.”

On the other side of the debate are C.W.E. Bigsby and Richard A. Duprey, both of whom have praised Hansberry because she, in their eyes, transcends those “special ethnic group materials.”

Duprey claims that Raisin is full of human insights that transcend any racial “concerns,” and Bigsby praises her compassion and her understanding of the need to “transcend” history.

Basically, Hansberry’s work has become heavily involved in the continuing conflict between the ethnic criteria of social protesters and the “pro-integrationist’s ethos of love and reconciliation” (Brown 238).

A third representative viewpoint can be exemplified by Jordan Miller, who, when confronted with this kind of debate, responds with the art-for-art’s-sake thesis. “He refuses to discuss Hansberry’s work ‘on the basis of any form of racial consciousness’ or ‘in any niche of social significance,’ and insists instead on the critic’s ‘obligation’ to judge the dramatist’s work as ‘dramatic literature quite apart from other factors” (Brown 238).

These three viewpoints taken together demonstrate the tendency to isolate questions of structure or technique from those of social, or racial, significance. So when Hansberry’s play met the critics, their comments and criticisms fit pretty clearly into one of these categories.

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Brown, Lloyd W. Lorraine Hansberry as Ironist:A Reappraisal of A Raisin in the Sun. Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Mar., 1974), pp. 237-247. Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Hansberry and Dubois

The cultural message Hansberry desired to convey through her work was heavily influenced by the person and the works of W. E. B. Dubois. According to Sheri Parks, he was a frequent visitor to the Hansberry family home, and Lorraine actually later studied African culture and philosophy under him.

The influence of Du Bois is most evident in Raisin in the concepts of double and merged consciousness. In a state of double consciousness, one attempts to adopt the consciousness of the ruling people, whereas in a state of merged consciousness, one successfully mixes one’c cultural history and one’s present situation to acheive self-realization.

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…One ever feels his twoness,–an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (Du Bois).

Double consciuosness can be observed in Hansberry’s play through George Murchison, for example. He is ready and willing to assimilate into the white business world, without trying to maintain his own Negro culture or background. He is trying to become a part of the white man’s world.

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,–this longing…to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America…He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism…He simply wishes to make it possible fr a man to be both a Negro and an American” (Du Bois).

An example of merged consciousness in Raisin is the character of Asagai, who rejects integratin and defends Black nationalism. He is proud of his culture and strives to maintain it in his life, rather than change who he is to become a part of white society.

It is evident that Hansberry’s characters and work were influenced by the writings of Du Bois, and that her cultural message was strengthened by the incorporation of social criticisms of the time.

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Laughlin, Karen and Schuler, Catherine, ed. Theatre and Feminist Aesthetics. London: Associated University Presses, 1995.

 

-Maddie Sokal

The Significance of Walter and the American Dream

J. Charles Washington states that Walter is both structurally and thematically the play’s dramatic focal point:

“It is Walter Lee, the bearer of aims and goals that have been conditioned by the prevailing values of the society, who is, dramatically, most representative. It is Walter Lee…who emerges as the most unique creation for his time and ours. It is his behavior throughout the play…which gives the play prophetic significance” (Washington 111).

If Walter is the central focal point of the play, then it follows that the primary meaning of the play is the tragedy of Walter’s reach for the American Dream. The American Dream, or the second-class version of it reserved for Black Americans and other poor people, is a recurring theme in the play. Both Mama and Walter are displayed as seeking to improve the conditions affecting their lives and possess dreams for their futures.

Some critics say that Walter seems to possess an inordinate degree of slef-respect and expects too much out of life for himself and his family; however, Washington believes this may have more to do with viewers’ perceptions than with Walter’s actions (112).

“If one has been conditioned to expect little, as many Blacks have been through racism, or to believe that Blacks deserve and are entitled to little, as some members of society have been led to believe, then the demand for any degree above this ‘conditioned less’ will seem excessive” (Washington 112).

It is for this reason that viewers consider Lena’s dream more “normal,” because there is a logical explanation for her behavior. Because her family comes first, her purchasing the house they need so badly may seem to viewers of the play to be a more sensible idea than Walter’s desire to open or invest heavily in a business.

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Washington, J.Charles. A Raisin in the Sun Revisitid. Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 22, No. 1, Black Women Writers Issue (Spring, 1988), pp. 109-124. Published by: St. Louis University. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904153

-Maddie Sokal

Hansberry’s Life in her Play

It is interesting to note the extent to which Lorraine Hansberry based her play, A Raisin in the Sun, on her own life. In 1938, her father, an active campaigner for civil rights, had tried to move his middle-class, well-educated family into a ‘white’ Chicago neighborhood and was met by violence. A large piece of concrete smashed a window and hit the, at the time, 8-year-old Lorraine.

As the play opens and the storyline proceeds, the audience understands Mama’s desire to move her family into a nicer neighborhood, one that is considered white. She knows what moving there would entail, and the possible dangers it could pose to her family, but she also knows very well the disadvantages of remaining where they currently reside. She wants to move up in the world, and is willing to take a chance by moving to a white neighborhood.

Hansberry’s play ends with the Younger family leaving their home to move to their new house in the white neighborhood. Interestingly, Hansberry does not detail their reception in the neighborhood at all, whether it be good or bad. Considering the harm done to her when she moved, it should not go unobserved the flexibility she left to the reader in determining how the Younger family was received.

The lack of a written future for the Younger family leaves room for hope for the family, as the scenario of moving is similar to her own personal experience, but she does not indicate the result in the play, leaving room for optimism and a better ending for the Youngers.

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Unwin, Stephen. A Pocket Guide to Twentieth Century Drama. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2001.

-Maddie Sokal

Hansberry’s Contrast of Stereotypes

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun provided a stark contrast in portrayal of African Americans in theatre, representing the moment of separation from degradingly stereotypical images of black people, as Harris states (Harris 22). Hansberry was one of several, including Amiri Baraka and Jimmy Garrett, to “replace the stereotype “nigger” image of buffoonery and low comedy with angry characters designed to forge Black consciousness into a literature that speaks not only for the Black man but also for the underground experiences of all Americans” (Willis).

It has been argued by critics that Mama Lena fits into the stereotypical “Mammy” character, and by others that she breaks out of the mold.

“Mama, who initially fits the popular stereotype of the Black Mammy, seems to be the domineering head of household. She rules everyone’s life…Mammy gives way to the caring, understanding mother, historic cornerstone of the black family” (Wilkerson).

“Body size and strength of character simultaneously operate to locate Mama Lena in the stereotype of the domineering strong black woman character as well as to lift her slightly out of it because she is literally the prototype for what later would be judged to be sterotypical” (Harris 26).

It can be seen that Hansberry created a dynamic within her play that would spark criticism and create more awareness on the representation of her people in literature and productions. Her characters differ greatly from any previous African American representation, yet they maintain certain characteristics that allow them to be recognized as a certain type of person.

For example, as Willis details, there are the two stereotypical antithetical Negro attitudes. One is represented by Beneatha’s boyfriend, George Murchison, who symbolizes the Black man who is happy to assimilate into the white business world. Her second suitor, Asagai, represents the second, rejecting integration and defending Black nationalism.

Through these character portrayals, Hansberry introduces yet another dynamic into her work, adding to the stereotypical contrasts that made her play so infamous and widely acclaimed.

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Harris, Trudier. Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Willis, Robert J. “Anger and the Contemporary Black Theatre.” Negro American Literature Forum, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer, 1974), pp 213-216. Published by: St. Louis University. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041131

 ”The Sighted Eyes and Feeling Heart of Lorraine Hansberry,” Black American Literature Forum 17:1 (Spring 1983):10.

–Maddie Sokal

Annotations and Works Cited

In proceeding with research for our blog, we wanted to contextualize the play and provide readers with a sense of the poignant and substantial historical, cultural, and social factors that surrounded the play and its subject matter. To that end, we each researched and wrote on different topics that were united by some theme that shed light on the context of A Raisin in the Sun. To understand the historical background of the play and how Hansberry’s life and beliefs may have influenced her work, several books concerning her life and writing (Sharadha, Y. S. (1998).Black Women’s Writing: Quest for Identity in the Plays of Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange. New Delhi: Prestige Books.; Bower, Martha Gilman. (2003).“Color Struck” Under the Gaze: Ethnicity and the Pathology of Being in the Plays of Johnson, Hurston, Childress, Hansberry, and Kennedy.Westport, Conn: Praeger.) as well as a few journal articles (Carter, Steven F. (1985). “Images of Men in Lorraine Hansberry’s Writing.” Black American Literature Forum 19. 160-62.; Carter, Steven R. (1980). “Commitment amid Complexity: Lorraine Hansberry’s Life in Action.” Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 7: 39-53.) were consulted. Researching the lawsuit that Raisin was partially based on presented an interesting challenge, in that it was not mentioned in any of the print sources or online articles. To find out more about the case, an article covering the case from the legal journal the University of California, Davis Law Review was used.

In addition to understanding how the author’s own experiences shaped the play, we wanted to explore the historical and sociocultural factors, specifically how African Americans were often discriminated against and how they were portrayed and perceived by white America, played a role in Hansberry’s writing. Wayne McMillan’s article, Pubic Housing in Chicago, 1946, addresses the pressing issues of the housing crisis in Chicago and what most families, especially African American families living in poverty were going through. Moreover, Loretta J. Ross’ article, African American and Abortion, from the book, Abortion Wars, focuses on the issue of abortion, particularly its impact on African American women in the 1950s and 1960s when abortion was still under much controversy.  As Ruth Younger, similar to many other women at the time, was considering abortion, this article discusses the history and the societal changes about abortion. In keeping with the idea that Hansberry wanted to show that African Americans experienced the same trials and tribulations that white Americans experienced, this series of posts showed that all Americans went through many of the same problems the Younger family had to deal with.

Finally, we wanted to tie some of the ideas and themes found in the play as well as Hansberry’s other works to the background information that we had gathered. This article written by Steven R. Carter examines, again, the universality of Hansberry’s work and discusses Toussaint, which examines how even the “masters” of an oppressed society are oppressed in their own way. Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual was used to look at Raisin in a different context; in Crisis, Cruse offers a very critical review of Hansberry’s work, calling it a “glorified soap opera.” By looking at several different aspects of the context of and background behind A Raisin in the Sun, we were able to glean quite a significant amount of information that we would have otherwise missed.

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-Stephen Xue

5/25/09

African American Stereotypes in the Performance Arts

An advertisement for The Beaulah Show

Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun was a revolutionary work during the 1950s and 1960s because it was not only the first honest depiction of an African American family, but it also addressed current social issues that were pertinent to America as a whole.  The post World War II period was a time of conformism and complacency stressed by the sudden growth of the suburbs and the increasing consumerism.  However, issues such as domestic and racial tensions were also beginning to increase.  A Raisin in the Sun was the first form of performance arts that depicted African Americans in a realistic light that is contrary to their ethnic stereotypes.  African American roles in televisions and on stage were usually small and comedic, portrayed as maids, servants, and butlers.  Their roles as comic relief in popular television programs such as The Beulah Show and The Jack Benny Show portrayed African Americans as having lower societal statuses in a light and trivial manner.  These portrayals in these popular television shows are directly correlated to types of jobs African Americans had during the time- primarily unskilled labor and positions as servants.

A Raisin in the Sun, contrary to The Beulah Show and The Jack Benny Show, strays from these stereotypes and shows the Younger family in a realistic light that is far from carefree and comedic.  Hansberry broaches on subjects that not only affect the African American culture, but also American culture as a whole.  By incorporating issues such as discrimination, poverty, abortion, individual identity and freedom, Hansberry creates a play that any audience can connect to in a meaningful way.

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“50′s TV: Clip from “The Beulah Show” with Hattie McDaniel.” The Beulah Show. 1950. 25 May 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkTpaBWVO8&feature=related>.

“What Kind of Man was Jack Benny.” The Jack Benny Show. 25 May 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LItvNnwOk4>.

-Emily Leung

Langston Hughes’ Harlem: A Dream Deferred

Harlem: A Dream Deferred

Langston Hughes

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?

Lorraine Hansberry obtained the title of her play, A Raisin in the Sun from Langston Hughes’ famous poem written in 1951, Harlem:A Dream Deferred, from his Montage of a Dream Deferred.  Hughes was a prominent African American writer and poet during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance in New York City.  It was a time when all African American writers, poets, artists, and musicians presented their own cultural and personal experiences using innovative voices and their efforts were applauded across the United States.  This positive national response towards the Harlem Renaissance instilled hope among everyone for a possible new age of acceptance for African Americans in the United States.

Harlem: A Dream Deferred, captures the desire for African American expression but also the impossibility of that dream because of oppression and racism.  Hughes poses the question of whether a “dream deferred,” a dream post phoned, dries up “like a raisin in the sun” (1-3).  This confronts the issue of ignorance that many African American felt at the time.  They felt that their desires and dreams were unimportant and at times, should even be forcefully resisted.  His comparisons of dreams and different negative connotations such as a festering sore, rotting meat, crusted sugar, and a heavy load all signify the deferred dream being an experience wracked with the disease of restlessness and dissatisfaction.  Hughes’ closing line, “Or does [a dream deferred] explode?” is a bold and daring statement that the suppression of African Americans might result in an explosion of protests and outcries.  This last line also places the blame for this possible explosion on the oppressive society.

Hansberry uses Hughes’ line as the title of her play because it stresses the importance of dreams and the struggle each character in The Raisin in the Sun goes through in order to reach his or her individual dreams.  Mama dreams for a better life for the family while Walter dreams to become wealthy so that his family can leave the world of poverty.  Ruth dreams for a better life for her son, Travis, and Beneatha dreams to become an accomplished doctor.  Although the text does not explicitly describe whether or not these dreams will be achieved in the future, all the struggles these characters face to achieve their own individual dreams are tied to the fundamental African American dream of equality.

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“Harlem.” Teachingamericahistory.org. 25 May 2009 <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=640>.

-Emily Leung

Reversal of Male and Female Role in the Family

Graphs and data detailing the amount of schooling, ages, average salaries and genders. (The Case for National Action: The Negro Family)

One interesting observation that can be made about the Younger family in Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is the reversal of male and female roles which is synonymous in all low income families.  In a publication made by the United States Office of Policy Planning and Research in 1965 titled, The Case for National Action: The Negro Family, the authors raise an interesting point that this reversal of roles is directly correlated to the lower quality of schooling African American men had compared to women.  Robert Blood Jr. And Donald M. Wolfe, both researchers, conducted a study of families in Detroit and noted that “ ‘Negro husbands have unusually low power [due to] the cumulative result of discrimination in jobs…,the segregation housing, and the poor schooling of Negro men” (30).  The study also revealed that “in 44 percent of Negro families studied, the wife was dominant, as against 20 percent of white wives” (31).  The authors also noted that the “poorer performance of the male in school exists from the very beginning” as 7.8 percent African American boys ages 7 to 9 are enrolled in school who are one or more grades below the normal grade level while for girls, the percentage is 5.8 with a difference of 2 percent.  The gap steadily reaches to 11.3 percent when these children reach 18 and 19 years old.  The authors also believed that African American girls are generally much better students than their male counterparts and have higher aspirations.  Daniel Thompson from Dillard University observed that “75 to 90 percent of all African American honor students are girls” and that “70 percent of all applications for the National Achievement Scholarship Program were girls” (31-32).

Although it is difficult to judge whether Mama, Ruth, or Walter had more education based on the text as it is not mentioned explicitly, the reversal of male and female head of the family can definitely be found in the Younger family.  It can be inferred that Mama could have had a better education as she is definitely a responsible and sensible head of the family.  Mama’s well thought out decision to purchase the new house at Clybourne Park contrasts starkly with Walter’s rash and disastrous decision to invest in a new liquor store venture.  While both decisions were made without consulting the whole family first, Mama’s decision was meant to improve the lives of everyone and create a better future for Walter’s son, Travis, especially, while Walter’s plan was also meant to better the future but created a burden instead.  Another well educated person in the family, Beneatha is outspoken and intelligent and has high ambitions of becoming a doctor.  Because she is college educated, it provides her better prospects, as shown clearly by the good quality of men who are trying to court her.

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The Case for National Action: The Negro Family. Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor, 1965.

-Emily Leung

Reconciling Race with Universality

In writing A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry sought to address issues of oppression that resonated most profoundly with women, the working class, and, above all, black America. Realizing that the subject matter and primary themes of her work would apply most to a rather specific and particular group of people and would thus likely be ignored by much of the white and affluent population, she sought to make her work more accessible to a large audience by combining elements of African American life with universal themes that all could sympathize with. Hansberry felt that the racial content of her work and general universality were by no means mutually exclusive. Rather, these themes, she believed, were inextricably linked to the black, but on a larger scale, human, experience. The idea was that the lives of blacks were no more or less universal than the lives of whites. The scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson best summed up Hansberry’s idea of the relation between race and universality in her essay “Lorraine Hansberry: The Complete Feminist”:

Her universalism, which redefines that much abused term, grew out of a deep, complex encounter with the specific terms of human experience as it occurs for blacks, women, whites, and many other groups of people. Her universalism was not facile, nor did it gloss over the things that divide people. She engaged those issues, worked through them, to find whatever may be, a priori, the human communality that lies beneath. It was as if she believed that one can understand and embrace the human family (with all its familial warfare) only to the extent that one can engage the truths (however partisan they may seem) of a social, cultural individual. “We must turn our eyes outward,” she wrote, “but to do so we must also turn them inward toward our people and their complex and still transitory culture.”

By incorporating such themes as marital and generational discord and tension, conformity versus diversity, idealism versus pragmatism, and the pitfalls of misguided and rash ambition into the play, she made her work appealing to a larger population; this ultimately resulted in A Raisin in the Sun being the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

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R., Carter, Steven. (1991). Hansberry’s Drama: Commitment Amid Complexity. Urbana: University of Illinois P.

Wilkerson, Margaret B. (1979). “Lorraine Hansberry: The Complete Feminist.” Freedomways 19.4: 235-45

-Stephen Xue

5/25/09