The Concept Of "Home" In Lorraine Hansberry's Plays

Living a brief life, Lorraine Hansberry left us the legacy of a few plays—A Raisin the Sun, Les Blancs, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and other unpublished plays. The success of A Raisin the Sun, which brought her to immediate fame in 1961, opened new doors for a renewed interest and boldness among Afro-American playwrights and theatre artists. Another important play is Les Blancs in which Hansberry taught Americans about Africa. Both of the two plays focus on the theme of Africa and explore the problem of segregation, colonization, suffering and struggles of Euro-America educated Africans and Afro-Americans. This thesis will analyze these two plays and probe into Hansbeny's concern about Africa and the problem of locating a stable home in the general sense for those Africans and Afro-Americans.In virtue of the affluence and advanced education inside her family, Hansberry got the opportunities to be acquainted with many famous intellectuals who all had profound knowledge about Africa and whose enlightenment evoked her interest in Africa. The introduction discusses Hansberry's life and career and her indebtedness to the influence of four influential characters in her life. In the two plays, Hansberry expressed her point of view on home through the depiction of three types of blacks. The following three chapters analyze these three types of characters as well as their different attitudes toward home and Africa.The first chapter focuses on certain groups of Africans and rich Afro-Americans that were unconsciously assimilated by white culture as a result of colonization and segregation. Hansberry believed that these people can be called "assimilationist". In their minds, the pure African-styled home no longer exists. They either considered America as a new "home' or chose to live in Africa but under a Europeanized system. Through the depiction of these characters' attitude and action, Hansberry expressed her evident disapproval, thus shows her anti-assimilationist stance.The second chapter is an analysis on Hansberry's those Afro-Americans who consider America as their permanent home and strive to construct a stable and comfortable home in America under the great pressure of racial segregation. These Afro-Americans such as Mama and Ruth in A Raisin in the Sun, the settled women, never thought of going to Africa or finding their roots in Africa. What they wanted was a stable home to feed their family and offspring. The Black man might dream of achieving a more successful position in America, however, the American dream was doomed to fail because of their color of skin. Therefore, it was obviously hard for these Afro-Americans to maintain a stable home in America and to dispose of the sense of homelessness. Hansberry expressed her sympathy for these characters that shared the same experience with her own family.The third chapter focuses on the younger generations who were mostly enlightened intellectuals and were striving to fight against colonization in Africa and construct a new African home. However, some of them had double consciousness: they were willing to find out their real identity but not eager to go to and settle in Africa. These enlightened intellectuals embody many of Hansberry's political views. Through these characters, Hansberry hoped to find a way-out for Africans and Afro-Americans of locating a home. Nevertheless, Africa may be an eternal home for native Africans via struggles, but it might not be befitting for Afro-Americans who have long been removed from their ancestors' land.