On Images Of Black Women In A Raisin In The Sun

As a part of the American ideology of domination, the stereotypes on black women have long been existed in the dominant American culture which characterized with racial and patriarchal ideologies. The deliberate degrading of black women’s image serves to justify various oppressions on them, and it severely hinders the development of black women’s self-consciousness. It also causes the lack of public attentions on issues which are related to black women and leave them to a marginal place. Therefore, to reconstruct black women’s image becomes one of the core themes in works of black women writers in America.A Raisin in the Sun (1959) written by Lorraine Hansberry belongs to the above kind. The play was a huge success when it premiered on Broadway Stage in1959. It breaks away from the traditional "protest novels" which was popular among black writers at that time; A Raisin in the Sun presents the positive and optimistic attitude of black people. In addition, it’s worth mentioning that Hansberry’s personal experience had profound influence on her literary creation, and A Raisin in the Sun has been received as semi-autobiography of the playwright, which is believed to enable the playwright to have a deeper understanding of characters and a more exquisite description of many scenes in the play.The writer thinks as the most well-known American women playwright in the1960s, Lorraine Hansberry gives her direct expression of ideas on black feminist in her works. A Raisin in the Sun endeavors to build new images of black women, to challenge the literary negative images and social stereotypes of black women. By analyzing women characters in the play, this thesis makes an attempt to challenge stereotypes on American black women, to break the ideology of domination. Different from her contemporaries whom-focus solely on one female character or to heroize her as an idol, Hansberry depicts black women by observing their daily lives, to show the growing self-consciousness, black consciousness and black feminist consciousness of black women lived in the1950s. Women in A Raisin in the Sun belong to three generations, they represent the image of black mother, wife and daughter respectively. Each of them has their different personality, puzzles and aspirations, which is a truthful presentation of lives of black women in working-class family in the1950s. Moreover, A Raisin in the Sun breaks away from the binary definition of black women as "degrading species" or "heroin", and it successfully establishes black women’s new image of complexity, diversity and dissimilarity.