Gender Relations and Black Resistance in Lorraine ...

興大人文學報

第五十七期，頁 111-140

二○一六年九月

111

Starting from the Family:

Gender Relations and Black Resistance in

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

Yi-chin Shih*

Abstract

A Raisin in the Sun (1959) is the first play written by an African American woman to be produced in a Broadway theater, and the writer, Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), became the first black playwright to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Set in a segregated Chicago neighborhood in the 1950s, A Raisin in the Sun realistically reflects the historical background of the African American civil rights movement. This paper examines gender relations in the Younger family through an analysis of the family structure, which symbolically represents black so-ciety during the period of the civil rights movement, in order to problematize the du-al oppression of gender and race. Divided into three body sections, the paper first provides a feminist critique of the patriarchal ideology disguised as matriarchy and antiracism. By centering on Big Walter and Walter, the second section argues that the Younger family is male headed, and the establishment of masculinity is im-portant for black resistance against racism at the time. The third section constitutes a new image of African American women by exploring the way they participate in the social movement and how they achieve gender liberation, and it especially focuses on Mama Lena Younger, who helps her family unite to resist racism according to her standpoint as a black woman. In short, while A Raisin in the Sun celebrates African American dignity and pride at the end, it also successfully demystifies the ideology of matriarchy by revealing the male-headed structure of the Younger family and de-stroys the stereotype of matriarchs by showing Lena’s feminist thought.

Keywords: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, civil rights movement, race, gen-

der, black matriarchy

* Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Culture, Tamkang University

This paper is a partial fulfillment of Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology research project

“Gender, Race, and Class:A Study of African AmericanWomen Playwrights, 1950-1970 (I) ” (MOST-

102-2410-H-032-091-). The author expresses her thanks to the MOST for its financial support. The au-

thor also would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions and comments.

(Received May 2, 2016; Accepted September 7, 2016)

Yi-chin Shih 興大人文學報第五十七期

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I. Introduction

Recognized still today as an important playwright, Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)

catches her readers and audience’s attention in A Raisin in the Sun (1959) when she, based

on the black American experience in the 1950s, tells a story about an African American fam-

ily moving into a white neighborhood despite existing housing discrimination.1 A Raisin in

the Sun is a milestone in the history of American theater; it wins Hansberry a New York

Drama Critics’ Circle Award and turns her into the first black playwright and the youngest

dramatist to have won the honor. The title of the play is derived from Langston Hughes’s

poem “Harlem,” and the playwright compares a dream deferred to a raisin in the sun.

Therefore, the play is also about a dream: an African American dream of success and libera-

tion. As a playwright with a political sense, Hansberry highlights African American dignity

and pride in the play. Thus, the play, shining under the light of antiracism, becomes a classic

representative work of African American survival in the United States.

Premiered in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun is an instant success, and especially in the his-

torical context of the civil rights movement, the themes related to antiracism easily stands

out. Amiri Baraka, a politically active African American writer in the 20th century, claims

that A Raisin in the Sun is “the quintessential civil rights drama” (83). In other words, the

play embodies the goal of the civil rights movement to end racial discrimination and segre-

gation. However, when feminists, such as bell hooks, assert that the movement, in fact, is

about “the establishment of black male patriarchy” (Ain’t 5), A Raisin in the Sun, as a dis-

tinctive civil rights play, is worth rereading from a feminist perspective to expose the gender

relation under the cover of black resistance and further to reveal the interlocking systems of

1 A Raisin in the Sun is based on Hansberry’s real experience when she, at the age of 8, and her fam-

ily moved into a white community in 1938. Because of racism against black people and housing

discrimination, the residents, becoming a mob, threw bricks through the window of her house.

Hansberry’s father, Carl A. Hansberry, fought the case and finally won. However, the family still

moved away from the community due to the deep-rooted racism at the time ( “Lorraine Hansberry”

667 ).

Starting from the Family: Gender Relations and Black Resistance in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin

in the Sun

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race and gender at that time.2

In order to understand the intersection of the oppression of gender and race in A Raisin

in the Sun, this paper examines gender relations in the Younger family through an analysis of

the family structure, and this structure symbolically represents gender relations in black

communities during the period of civil rights movement.3 Many critics claim that the gen-

2 When it comes to black feminism, the study of “the system of oppression” is the core of it. Cathe-

rine Villanueva Gardner explains, “Central to black feminist thought is the goal of identification of

the way that the systems of oppression of race, class, and gender interlock” (35). In other words, the

cause of the oppression of black women is multidimensional, and it is usually combined with “race,

class, and gender.” For example, while Angela Davis emphasizes the intersection of gender, race

and class in Women, Race and Class (1981), Audre Lorde complicates the systems of oppression of

gender, race and class with “sexuality” in Sister Outsider (1984). Moreover, Frances Beale in her

famous essay, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” (1969), emphasizes the role of “capi-

talism” in the interlocking systems of oppression. Patricia Hill Collins theorizes the interlocking

systems of oppression and concludes with a standpoint of African American women in Black Femi-

nist Thought (1990). However, this paper, analyzing the family structure in A Raisin in the Sun,

examines how black men and women organize themselves to fight against racism during the civil

rights movement, so the intersection of race and gender is emphasized more in this paper. Being

aware of the multidimensional forms of oppression, but by focusing on the interconnection of race

and gender, the exercise of black patriarchy under the cover of antiracism and the practice of black

feminist thought under the pressure of racism and sexism can be exposed and highlighted. 3 This paper argues that the Younger family reflects the black community in the civil rights movement,

so an understanding of the family in the play is a way to understand the black community in the

civil rights movement, and vice versa. As Herbert G. Gutman, a professor of African American his-

tory, claims, “To focus on the ‘family’ also means to focus on ‘culture’ ” (xxi). The family is usually

considered as a microcosm of the larger society. Especially, A Raisin in the Sun is a realistic play

based on the black experience in the middle of the 20th century, so the parallel between the Young-

er family and the black community is obvious. Amiri Baraka points out realism in the play and the

bonding between the play and the civil rights movement. He comments, “When Raisin first ap-

peared in 1959, the Civil Rights Movement was its earlier stages. And as a document reflecting the

essence of those struggles, the play is unexcelled. For many of us it was—and remains—the quin-

tessential civil rights drama” (83). Hansberry is a well-known civil rights pioneer (Bloom 7), and

her political ideas usually are embodied by the characters she creates (Baraka 84). Therefore,

Hansberry’s intention to review the black community at the time by the Younger family in the play

is also sensible. Overall, it is reasonable to assume that the Younger family represents the black

community in the civil rights movement.


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der relation in A Raisin in the Sun is headed by matriarchy, which literally means the rule of

the mother in the family; for example, Mary Louise Anderson proposes, “Nevertheless, it is

a play about matriarchy. Mama, Mrs. Lena Younger, is a matriarch, and Ruth, her daugh-

ter-in-law, struggles with the matriarch role” (93). Highlighting maternal power in the play,

Trudier Harris even points out “the tendency to tyranny” of Mama Lena Younger (115).

However, to claim the play is about matriarchy because of the strong matriarch Mama Lena

simplifies the gender relations in the Younger family and overlooks the dimension of race in

gender issues at the time. By re-examining the family structure in A Raisin in the Sun, this

paper argues that the family, and the black society during the period of the civil rights

movement as well, is male headed, which is crucial for the establishment of patriarchy and

black resistance against racism; yet, considering anti-racism and racial unity as the top prior-

ity, most black women see family as the site for gender liberation and racial resistance, and

they turn to focus on the roles of caretakers and mothers to support their men and race. In

light of such an interpretation, A Raisin in the Sun is a feminist play because it exposes the

exercise of patriarchy, highlights the contributions of black women, and complicates gender

relations with the dimension of race.

Divided into three body sections, the first section is a feminist critique of the patriar-

chal ideology in the civil rights movement, and by studying the myth of black matriarchy,

gender biases and racism are uncovered. The second section, centering on the core but ab-

sent figure Big Walter and his son, argues that the Younger family is based on patriarchy,

instead of matriarchy, and it analyzes how black men possess their manhood. The play dis-

plays the patriarchal belief at that time that the exercise of antiracism is expressed in the es-

tablishment of black masculinity. Not only does the playwright reveal racism and patriarchy

in the play, but she also records a strong black woman who practices her feminist ideas in

daily life to show the double oppressions. The third section constitutes a new image of Afri-

can American women, who go beyond the gender dichotomy for the unity of their race, and

describes how Mama Lena Younger helps her family be stronger to resist racism according

to her standpoint as a black woman. In short, centering on the interlocking systems of race

and gender in A Raisin in the Sun, this paper discloses patriarchal ideology disguised as ma-


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triarchy and antiracism, and it also depicts the black women’s efforts for black resistance and

black feminist belief.

II. Gender and Race Issues in the Period of the Civil Rights Movement

Set in the segregated Southside of Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun takes place from the

late 1940s to the 1950s. The civil rights movement in the United States started in the 19th

century, but the interval from 1954 to 1968 was the heyday of the movement (Savage 551).

Then the period from the 1950s to the 1960s is usually designated as the civil rights move-

ment. In other words, Hansberry writes the play before most racial issues are even beginning

to be raised, so that the play is precious for its prediction of the unconstitutionality of hous-

ing segregation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended racial discrimination in public accom-

modations and public facilities, while the Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned racial discrimina-

tion in the sale and rental of housing (552). In such a time of rapid historical change, women

actively participated in the civil rights movement in order to improve women’s condition

(Tong 45). The movement against gender discrimination formed the so-called Second wave

feminism from the late 1960s to the early 1970s (Pilcher and Whelehan 144). Women, no

matter whether in the civil rights movement or the Second wave feminist movement, dis-

covered the differences among themselves, particularly the difference in racial status (hooks,

Feminism 55). While black women were ignored in the fight for racial justice in the civil

rights movement, they were also marginalized in the combat against gender inequality in the

white female-dominated feminist movement. Hansberry, in A Raisin in the Sun, well de-

scribes the complicated bind between race and gender, and shows the patriarchal ideology in

black society during the time of the civil rights movement.

bell hooks declares, “While the 1960s black power movement was a reaction against

racism, it was also a movement that allowed black men to overtly announce their support of

patriarchy” (Ain’t 98). Thus, the establishment, not creation, of patriarchy for black men was

crucial for resisting racism. The leaders of the civil rights movement were male mainly, and

they believed that black women would rather be housewives or mothers than the leaders to

fight for racial justice and freedom (5). Wandering between support for black men against


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racism and support for white women against sexism, most black women believed that racism

was harsher than sexism; they thought the liberation from racial oppression would also set

them free (1). In addition, the emphasis on racial unity also forced black women to submit

themselves to black patriarchy for the sake of their own race. The woman who questioned

black male authority was usually called a “race traitor” (Tillet 758) because she destroyed

the peace and solidarity in black society. Therefore, black women, in the hope of getting

protection for their own race, chose to stand by black patriarchy and to continue suffering

from sexism.

As LaVerne Gyant describes, “When one looks at the history of the civil rights move-

ment, one would think that there were only a few women involved—Rosa Parks, Fannie

Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker” (630).4 Black women generally were considered as

marginal rather than primary or companion roles. Patricia Hill Collins comments, “Overall,

even though Black women intellectuals have asserted their right to speak both as African

Americans and as women, historically these women have not held top leadership positions

in Black organizations and have frequently struggled within them to express Black feminist

ideas” (7). By highlighting women’s inferior position and their difficulty of articulating

feminist thought, Collins points out black women’s experience of oppression in the civil

rights movement. Similarly, Steven M. Buechler also observes the marginalization of black

women in social movements. He finds that even though black women tried to raise the is-

sues of sexism and female equality, “[a] definitive, woman-centered analysis never appeared

in the civil rights movement” (32). Part of the reason was “racial and sexual tensions be-

tween black and white women”; the other part was “the hostility or indifference of many

men” (32). Therefore, black women neither allied with white women nor cooperated with

4 Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker are four black women who are easily pointed

out in the movement. Rosa Parks was well-known for her behavior of refusing to give up her seat to a

white man (Gyant 631). Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the leaders in the southern civil rights move-

ment (Atwater 541). Daisy Bates was the leader in the Little Rock School Crisis, in which black high

school students were forbidden to enter the school (541). Ella Baker was one of the most active par-

ticipants in the movement, and she helped to form some civil rights organizations at the time (541).


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black men, so they were generally marginalized in this social movement. The civil rights

movement was still mainly dominated by black men; in the name of antiracism and race

equality, black patriarchal ideology was rationalized and, thus, prevailed.

Calling on resistance to racism and unity of black people, black men urged black

women to return to the family and to follow men’s orders, so that the civil rights movement

was “a move to gain recognition and support for an emerging black patriarchy” (hooks, Ain’t

97). Black patriarchy was affirmed and displayed throughout the movement. Interestingly,

the condemnation of black matriarchy was popular at the time to assert the importance of

black patriarchy and black resistance for their race. The myth of matriarchy was confirmed

by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s crucial book on the black family The Negro Family:

The Case for National Action (1965), which was well-known as Moynihan’s Report. In the

heyday of the civil rights movement, Moynihan published the report in order to claim that

dysfunctional family structure, which referred to female-headed families, was the reason that

caused the inferiority of the black people. “At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of

Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family,” (5) the senator asserts. By compar-

ing white and black family structures at the time, Moynihan finds that while male-headed

families in the white world achieve “a high degree of stability” (5), the female-headed fami-

lies in the black society are “unstable” or even “approaching complete break-down” (5). He

blames many black problems, such as poverty, delinquency and crime, the failure of youth,

and high rate of unemployment, to the structure of the black family.

Moynihan’s insistence in the justice of patriarchal family structure is so strong that his

report is full of sexism against black women. He comments, “In essence, the Negro commu-

nity has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is so out of line with the

rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and im-

poses a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro

women as well” (29). Moynihan believes that black society “has been forced into a matriar-

chal structure” because of the history of slavery when black women were abandoned in the

family and men were gone for slavery. For him, the experience of slavery destroys the prop-


118

er family structure with patriarchy; thus, after emancipation, it is urgent to change the wrong

structure into the correct one, namely to re-establish the patriarchal family.5 Black matriar-

chy is a “damage” to the race, and Moynihan proposes that “until this damage is repaired, all

the effort to end discrimination and poverty and justice will come to little” (5). In other

words, black matriarchy becomes the target and is believed to cause black communities to

degenerate and deteriorate.

“A fundamental fact of Negro American family life is the often reversed roles of hus-

band and wife,” (30) Moynihan claims. The structure of a female-headed family should be

corrected, and the senator believes that “a national effort toward the problems of Negro

Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure” (47). Moynihan’s Re-

port was published in 1965 right after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so it became an official

and documentary source to prove the importance of the re-establishment of black patriarchy

for the development of black society. Based on several statistical records and the rates of

crime, unemployment, poverty and other social problems at the time, Moynihan’s Report

seemed to be fair enough, especially his research confirmed the matriarchy thesis in E.

Franklin Frazier’s The Negro Family in the United States (1939), which is considered as the

first significant sociological book on the black family written by a black man (Dill 544).

Frazier found that after black emancipation, the maternal-family organization in black

communities grew to “a fairly large scale” (The Negro Family 483), but the male-headed

family stood for “the highest development of Negro family life” (484). Both Frazier and

Moynihan believed that black women should withdraw their power over the family and

black men for the good of the race. The ideology of black matriarchy was combined with

issues of race and gender from the outset, and so being popular in the 1960s affirmed the

5 During slavery, black people were considered as white masters’ property. In order to have more property,

which means more labor and economic interests, white masters allowed some black people to have

their own family. The slaves generally were treated as“instruments of production”(Frazier 481), and

by buying and selling slaves, white masters destroyed“emotional ties between the mates”(481) so as

to destroy the structure of the black family. However, Frazier found that“the slave mothers”usually

played the main role of supporting their family (481), so the matriarchal structure continued on a large

scale after emancipation (483).


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significance of the patriarchal structure of the family, community and social movements.

Moynihan’s and Frazier’s research both remain flawed. Herbert G. Gutman finds more

evidence to show that the maternal-family structure is not typical in black communities, and

he claims, “Conventional historians and sociologists, however, have exaggerated their im-

portance and too frequently have described the lower-class black southern family as little

more than a ‘maternal family’” (444 emphasis added). The so-called “archetypal matrifocal

family” in fact hardly exists (445). bell hooks takes it a step further to assert, “No matriarchy

has ever existed in the United States” (Ain’t 72). The term ‘matriarchy’ indicates that women

enjoy a higher position than men do; however, in the 1950s and 1960s, black women were

inferior to black men in both the public and private spheres. Because of feeling hurt at their

demeaned sense of masculinity, black men tended to refuse low paying jobs. On the contrary,

black women valued survival more than dignity, so they worked outside and offered finan-

cial support for their families (77). When black women had the ability to feed their families,

they were accused of taking the leading status away from men at home (76). When black

women entered the job market, they were blamed for threatening men’s manhood (79).

Hence, black women were described as unfeminine and unladylike. As a bad stereotypical

image of black women, the matriarch represents “a failed mammy, a negative stigma to be

applied to African American women who dared reject the image of the submissive, hard-

working servant” (Collins 75). Matriarchy becomes an excuse to rationalize the black men’s

damaged sense of manhood in the outside racist world.6

The middle 20th century is a crucial historical period of time for African American peo-

6 Some terms need to be clarified. Frazier designates“matriarchy”as“matriarchate,”which means

“maternal households”(126),“families with women heads”(126), and“maternal family”(142),

and he uses them alternatively in The Negro Family in the United States. Moynihan describes the

black family as“a matriarchal structure”(29). Therefore, matriarchy, female-headed family, or any

other terms named by Frazier and Moynihan are used in the paper to show that black women play a

dominant role in the family. Nevertheless, the paper intends to challenge the idea of matriarchy and

considers it as a false conception in order to require black women submitting themselves to black pa-

triarchy, so the terms“matriarchal ideology”and“the ideology of matriarchy”are used to show the

false consciousness of the black family.


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ple. Fighting for equality, civil rights, and racial unity, they set up a milestone in history.

However, while the black society was excited about anti-racism, the gender issue was easily

marginalized in order to highlight the race as a whole. The matriarchal ideology rationalized

why the development of black society was retarded and why the establishment of black pa-

triarchy was crucial for their race. Under such a cultural and historical background, A Raisin

in the Sun realistically reflects the gender relations and black resistance at the time; particu-

larly, the Younger family represents a miniature of black society as the family structure is

parallel to the structure of black society. The following section first focuses on the structure

of the Younger family and argues that the family is male ruled unlike some critics’ sugges-

tion of matriarchy. After that, the paper discusses some black feminist thought embodied by

the black female character, Mama Lean Younger, to propose that instead of gaining power

over men, black women tend to play the roles of caretakers, educators, and negotiators to

help their family and society become united.

III. The Reconfirmation of a Male-Headed Household

When it comes to matriarchy, the characteristic of a domineering and emasculating

mammy stands out easily. Anderson defines a black matriarch as one who “regards the

Black male as undependable and is frequently responsible for his emasculation” (93).7

Bonnie Thornton Dill finds that married black women still participate in the labor force and

have economic independence, so black men are not the only source of income in the family.

The black matriarch thus represents “dominance over and emasculation of black men” (550)

because her economic independence decreases black men’s sense of masculinity. The image

of an emasculating mammy is so strong that Harris takes a step further to argue that “by not

showing any interest in men, Mama Lena is a respectable woman, so respectable that she

does not even think of what it would mean to have a male companion/lover” (121). For the

7 Anderson concludes four main characteristics of the black matriarch. The top one is that the black ma-

triarch emasculates black men. The other three are: the black matriarch is“often very religious,”

“regards mothering as one of the most important things in her life,”and“attempts to shield her

children from and to prepare them to accept the prejudices of the white world” (93).


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unity of the Younger family, Lena becomes a great matriarch who not only emasculates her

son but also needs no husband. As a domineering and emasculating female head, “Mama’s

physical and moral power as mother are not to be challenged” (119).

However, A Raisin in the Sun on the surface is about matriarchy: how Mama Lena

guides her son, Walter Lee Younger, and the family to get together and to resist racial op-

pression. In fact, the one who leads the family is Big Walter, Lena’s husband, rather than

Lena herself. Lena follows Big Walter’s values and will to cultivate their children, to assist

Walter become the next head in the family, and withdraw her power finally. As William

Cook suggests, “Lena Younger’s function in the play is not so much to create values and to

impose her will on her children as it is to interpret for them Walter Senior’s values and to

mold them into the kind of people he would have them be” (71-72). Therefore, the play is

about the reconfirmation of the male-headed household from Big Walter to Walter, and Lena

functions as an intermediator, rather than a matriarch. Symbolically, during the period of the

civil rights movement, since black resistance against racism and racial unity are the top pri-

ority, the reconfirmation of patriarchy is urgent and matriarchy is an illusion that falsely

considers women as heads.

Big Walter, who never appears in the play, in fact is the actual head of the Younger

family, and he confirms the sex-role patterns as patriarchy in the family. In particular, Big

Walter also exists in the play as the insurance money, which starts the entire story. The rea-

son why Lena insists on buying a house is because that is Big Walter’s dream. Complaining

about the ghetto they live in to Ruth, Lena says, “I remember just as well the day me and

Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks and wasn’t planning on liv-

ing here no more than a year [...] We was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know,

and buy a little place out in Morgan Park. We had even picked out the house” (Hansberry

1595). After Lena buys a house in Clybourne Park, she tells her grandson Travis that it is his

grandfather, Big Walter, who gives him the house (1617). At the end of the play, when Wal-

ter makes up his mind to move into the new house, which is located in a white neighborhood,

he responds to Karl Lindner that “we have decided to move into our house because my fa-


122

ther [Big Walter] —my father—he earned it” (1642). It is Big Walter’s dream and last will to

move away from the black ghetto; it is also Big Walter’s money made out of his flesh and

blood that they use to buy the new house. Lena executes his will and makes his dream come

true.

The head of the Younger family is Big Walter; this family structure exactly reflects the

hierarchical structure in the civil rights movement: men were leaders in black society.

Throughout the play, Lena always mentions Big Walter, and Walter always keeps his father’s

insurance money in mind. Big Walter exists in the play invisibly, and his words become the

guideline for the family. Regarding Ruth’s abortion, Lena uses Big Walter’s words to per-

suade Walter to keep the child. She comments,

I’m waiting to hear how you be your father’s son. Be the man he was [...] Your

wife say she going to destroy your child. And I’m waiting to hear you talk like him

and say we a people who give children life, not who destroys them [...] I’m waiting

to see you stand up and look like your daddy and say we done give up one baby to

poverty and that we ain’t going to give up nary another one . . . I’m waiting. (1609)

Apparently, Big Walter’s words are an invisible strong power to the Younger family. In

addition, Big Walter’s behavior also becomes a symbol of racial dignity, as Walter mentions

that Big Walter would beat a man for calling him a bad name (1642). Overall, this absent

center remains superior over Lena, who executes his will, and Walter, who takes advantage

of his insurance money.

Although this male head of the family is absent, the family is still based on a patriar-

chal hierarchy. Considering Walter immature, Lena substitutes for Big Walter to be the head

of the Youngers, but she follows Big Walter’s will to handle the family. When she decides to

return the position of the head of the family to Walter, she says, “I’m telling you to be the

head of this family from now on like you supposed to be” (1622 emphasis added). Instead of

giving the head to the other two matriarchs, Ruth and Beneatha, as a matriarchy would, Lena

returns it to Walter. In other words, like Big Walter, Walter is the rightful head of the Young-

ers; the family is supposed to be male-dominated and male-centered. After Willy, who is


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Walter’s friend and persuades him to invest in a liquor store, has gone away with Walter’s

money, Lena decides not to move into the house. However, Walter still is determined to

move. Lena obeys her son, the rightful head of the family, and claims, “My son said we was

going to move and there ain’t nothing left for me to say” (1642). Obviously, the Younger

family, from the very outset, is patriarchal, not matriarchal.

After Big Walter, Walter is the next rightful head in the family. In the play, Walter’s ra-

cial awareness depends on the establishment of his manhood and the confirmation of the

patriarchal mode of gender relations in the Younger family. Walter’s psychological devel-

opment from an immature person to a masculine man is the center of A Raisin in the Sun.

Unable to find a proper job with good salary in the white-dominated society, Walter works

as a chauffeur for a white master and lives in a black ghetto. At the end, when he bravely

announces they will move into the new house in the white neighborhood without fear of ra-

cial discrimination, his transformation exactly manifests the statement that “[t]he discourse

of black resistance has almost always equated freedom with manhood” (hooks, Yearning 58).

The establishment of men’s masculinity was the foundation of black resistance in the civil

rights movement. Therefore, in order to organize the power of black resistance, men were

meant to regain their manhood.

To confirm the patriarchal structure in black society, the abhorrence of black women

was not rare in the 1950s, and the image of black women as “female castrators” was popular,

too (hooks, Ain’t 180). Walter’s spite for black women mirrors the social reality at that time.

Walter appears in the play, as a man who “always in his voice there is a quality of indict-

ment” (Hansberry 1586). Unable to realize his dream of financial success, he blames his

wife, Ruth, for not understanding or helping him. He complains, “That is just what is wrong

with the colored woman in this world . . . Don’t understand about building their men up and

making ‘em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something” (1590). What he implies

is that Ruth should support him unquestionably and should establish his masculinity. Wal-

ter’s spite for black women is obvious, especially when he claims, “We are group of men

tied to a race of women with small minds” (1590). The reason black women were consid-


124

ered female castrators was mainly owing to the fact that black women had to work to pro-

vide financial support to their families (hooks, Ain’t 75). In the play, Walter is not the only

financial provider for his family. Lena and Ruth are servants of white people, and even little

Travis knows how to make money by carrying groceries at the supermarket. When Walter’s

income is not the only economic source of the family, he feels emasculated.8 The image of

black women as female castrators is another part of the matriarchal ideology utilized to jus-

tify the importance of black manhood and patriarchy.

As he looked down upon black women, Walter is eager to make people believe his

manhood. He, regarding being a doctor as a masculine job, disagrees with Beneatha’s dream

of being a female doctor, so he yells at her, “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If

you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people—then go be a nurse like other wom-

en—or just get married and be quiet . . .” (Hansberry 1592). His sexist attitude toward jobs

and people gives him a good reason to use Big Walter’s insurance money to invest in his

liquor store instead of paying for Beneatha’s tuition for medical school. However, the money

belongs to Lena, which means Walter’s dream of building up his manhood through financial

success is decided by a woman. Hence, being incapable of performing his masculinity, Wal-

ter is angry and cynical. He cries, “Man, I’m a volcano. Bitter? Here I am a gi-

ant—surrounded by ants! Ants who can’t even understand what it is the giant is talking

about” (1614). Holding great confidence in himself, Walter believes in a materialist sense of

success to establish his masculinity.

Walter’s anxiety about being a masculine and powerful man is particularly clear when

he is drunk. After his investment has been turned down by Lena, Walter paralyzes himself

8 Anthropologist Margaret Mead in Male and Female explains the expression of masculinity by

grown-up males as being equal with taking the responsibility of nurturing their family members. She

observes,“In every known human society, everywhere in the world, the young male learns that when

he grows up one of the things which he must do in order to be a full member of society is to provide

food for some female and her young”(146). Young males must learn the appropriate nurturing be-

havior, such as making money, for their family members so as to become men. In other words, when

men cannot nurture their family or when they are not the only providers in the family, their sense of

masculinity is challenged and even they cannot be seen as men.


in the Sun

125

with alcohol. Drunk, he imagines himself as a tribal warrior (1610). He possesses an imagi-

nary spear and pretends to impale a lion. As the stage direction describes, “He sees what we

cannot, that he is a leader of his people, a great chief, a descendant of Chaka, and that the

hour to march has come” (1611). Here, the metaphor of hunting is closely related to the ex-

pression of masculinity, and the imagination of being a warrior or a leader manifests his de-

sire to control and dominate his family. He wants to be the head of the Youngers and to

master the future of his family, like a traditional tribal leader. His vision of masculinity is

still based on patriarchy.

Being a “real” man means “he could control ‘his’ women” (hooks, Ain’t 96), and he is

“the sole boss” in the family (79). If Walter must become a “real” man, then he must domi-

nate other women in the family and be the only head of the Youngers. Seeing her son lost in

his life, Lena returns the mantle of the head of the family to Walter, as it is supposed to be.

Walter, possessing the power to control the family, is completely different and stops com-

plaining. The first time he makes a decision for his family is when Karl Lindner, the repre-

sentative of the neighborhood committee for Clybourne Park, persuades him not to move

into the new house. By shouting at Lindner “get out” three times (Hansberry 1627-28), Wal-

ter, fearless of racist oppression, displays African American pride and dignity; more im-

portantly, he confronts racial discrimination and exercises his gender power in a “manly”

way. Apparently, liberation from racial discrimination is expressed through the development

and establishment of black masculinity.

Walter’s manhood is firmly secured when he rejects Lindner’s offer for the second time.

Bobo, who is Walter’s partner in the liquor store plan, tells Walter that Willy has disappeared

with their money. Sad over the loss of the money, which represents Big Walter’s suffering

throughout his life, Walter decides to sell the new house to Clybourne Park at a higher price,

but Lena disagrees with his decision. Claiming that “[w]e ain’t never been that poor”

(Hansberry 1640), Lena refuses to take money from white people unfairly. While arguing

with Lena, Walter suddenly bursts out in anger and declares, “I tell you I am a man—and I

think my wife should wear some pearls in this world!” (1640 emphasis added). The stage


126

direction continues, “The word ‘Man’ has penetrated his consciousness” (1640). It is in

Walter’s consciousness of being a man that he finally realizes his ethnic dignity is more im-

portant than money. When Lindner comes the second time, Walter changes his mind and

decides to move into Clybourne Park still. “Well, what I mean is that we come from people

who had a lot of pride. I mean—we are very proud people […] We don’t want to make no

trouble for nobody or fight no causes—but we will try to be good neighbors. That’s all we

got to say” (1642), Walter responds to Lindner. Moving into a house in a white neighbor-

hood itself is an act of resisting racial discrimination and segregation, and this resistance is

performed through Walter’s sense of the development of his manhood. While he resists rac-

ist oppression in a “manly” way, his liberation is linked with the freedom of African Ameri-

can people and the domination of black women. He makes decisions for his family, and he

reclaims the dignity of his race. Walter becomes a “real” man, so that he fights for racial jus-

tice successfully.

The patriarchal structure of the Younger family is confirmed by Walter as the next suc-

cessor. More crucially, the heritage is carried by his son Travis, the future male head. When

Lindner comes the second time, Walter tells the male history of the Younger family to Linder.

He narrates, “What I am telling you is that we called you over here to tell you that we are

very proud and that this is—this is my son, who makes the sixth generation of our family in

this country, and that we have all thought about your offer and we have decided to move into

our house because my father—my father—he earned it” (1642). By following Big Walter’s

will, Walter succeeds the previous head; by naming Travis, Walter confirms the patriarchal

structure of the family. Instead of matriarchy, the Younger family is and will be

male-headed.

IV. Black Women’s Expression of Feminist Thought

In the name of antiracism and racial solidarity in the civil rights movement, black

women submitted themselves to black men while black men played the role of leaders and

patriarchs, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and W. E. B. Du Bois. However, although black

women generally remained in a subordinate status in black society for the sake of racial uni-


in the Sun

127

ty, they, in fact, also had their own way of resisting racist oppression. First, they indeed took

part in the civil rights movement. Although the social movement was gendered and domi-

nated mainly by black men, “it is clear from numerous accounts of the civil rights movement

[…] that women formed a substantial portion of the participants within the movement”

(Robnett 1667). Women did participate in this social movement; however, they “preferred to

stay behind the scenes” (1664) or they were “often channeled away from formal leadership

positions” (1667). Collins also points out the participation of women in social movements in

history although they were generally marginalized: “African-American women have been

active in movements for Black civil rights such as the abolitionist movement, the antilynch-

ing struggles in the early twentieth century, and the more recent civil rights movement in the

South” (218). Ella Baker even claims, “The moment of the fifties and sixties was carried

largely by women” (qtd. in Gyant 630).

Without question, black women did participate in the civil rights movement, but the

question is “how” they took part in it to resist racism. Of course, black women generally

submitted to black men’s commands, but Collins reminds people that, under the pressure of

interlocking systems of race and gender, black women were involved in the movement dif-

ferently. She claims, “U.S. Black women’s acceptance of subordinate roles in Black organi-

zations does not mean that we wield little authority or that we experience patriarchy in the

same way as do White women in White organizations” (7). In other words, although black

women played subordinate roles in the civil rights movement, they participated in the

movement in different ways to resist sexism. Based on their daily experience, they provided

their assistance to support the racial struggle.

The oppression from the interlocking systems of race and gender troubled black wom-

en; between racism and sexism, research shows that they suffer more from racism. As

Hunter and Sellers argue, “race will be more salient than any other system of stratification,”

and “racial identity was more salient than gender identity for African American women”

(83). Furthermore, Paula Stewart Brush problematizes race consciousness and asserts that it

is never essentialist (176); instead, race consciousness “must be understood historically and


128

culturally” (176). From this perspective, black women generate race consciousness and ra-

cial identity differently from black men because they have a different experience of racism,

which always interlocks with sexism.

In the following quotation, Guida Lerner points out that black women’s liberation is

different from the liberation of white women, and this difference is usually colored with

black resistance to racism:

White society has long decreed that while “woman’s place is in the home,” Black

women’s place is in the white woman’s kitchen. No wonder that many Black women

define their own “liberation” as being free to take care of their own homes and their

own children, supported by a man with a job. (81)

For black women, taking good care of their family and supporting their men are the

ways to express their own gender liberation and racial identity. With this idea, it is under-

standable why many black women in the civil rights movement are not considered as leaders

nor do they see themselves as leaders (Gyant 644). The black women “were more concerned

with helping people in their communities to think through their problems, shaping their

goals, and encouraging them to become self-empowered” (Gyant 644). Rather than giving

orders or setting rules, the black women tended to participate in the movement in their femi-

nine way.

The way that black women participated in this anti-racism movement represented a

special black feminist thought. First, research showed that the black women had a different

interpretation of leader. Gyant finds, “They viewed a leader as anyone who was a good fol-

lower, who represented the tenor of the time, and who articulated the desires of the people”

(641). What Gyant means is, the organization of civil rights movement could not simply be

regarded as the dichotomy of leaders and followers; a good follower could be seen as a lead-

er. Although the movement was dominated by black men, black women’s contribution to it

could not be overlooked. They functioned as caretakers, communicators, negotiators, and

organizers in general, even though most of them were not the heads who gave orders.

Belinda Robnett describes that the black women’s achievement to the movement is that they


in the Sun

129

play “an intermediate layer of leadership” (1688),9 such as Mama Lena Younger who fol-

lows Big Walter’s values and will to educate and organize her family members. She is an

intermediator in the movement, as are many black female participants. Instead of being the

leader, they participated in the movement in their soft, feminine way to organize their family

and community.

Black women go beyond the dichotomy of leaders and followers to work together with

men to fight against racism while asserting their gender liberation simultaneously. From this

perspective to read A Raisin in the Sun, although the Younger family is ruled by men to resist

racism, the Younger women, especially Mama Lena, assist the family unity and encourage

their family members to become self-empowered. In A Raisin in the Sun, Lena centers her

life in the family by taking care of the family and supporting her son. She, based on her daily

experience, embodies black feminist thought and racial consciousness. She, as well as the

other black women in the civil rights movement, forms another black power to resist racism

and display feminism.

Seeing unification of all black people as the primary mission, black women “play crit-

ical roles in keeping Black families together and in supporting Black men” (Collins 86). Par-

ticularly, they consider motherhood as an important way to express their feminist ideas and

assist the racial struggle for equality. Collins explains how black women value motherhood:

“motherhood can serve as a site where Black women express and learn the power of

self-definition, the importance of valuing and respecting ourselves, the necessity of

self-reliance and independence, and a belief in Black women’s empowerment” (176). More

crucially, motherhood could also be “a catalyst for social activism” (176). Therefore, A Rai-

sin in the Sun is feminist and shines under a strong black woman Lena, who catalyzes and

participates in the civil rights movement based on her daily experience of a black woman.

9 Robnett observes that in the civil rights movement,“the intermediate layer of leadership”is the ma-

jor area for the black women’s leadership. The primary tasks of this leadership are“bridging potential

constitutents and adherents as well as potential formal leaders of the movement”(1688). Robnett thus

claims,“Women, as bridge leaders, performed this task in the civil rights movement”(1688).


130

Lena, centering her life on her children, is the core of the Younger family. She teaches

her children love and builds up their home as a safe place away from the outside white op-

pression. Many people criticized black women for spending too much time working away

from home; they were blamed for black children failing at school and becoming trouble-

makers in society (Collins 76). Lena, on the contrary, educates her children well. No matter

how hard the times are that she encounters, she insists on taking Walter and Beneatha to

church every Sunday (Hansberry 1598). When the family is almost broke due to the insur-

ance money being taken away by Willy, Lena teaches Beneatha to love her brother Walter.

Lena explains, “Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they

done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learn-

ing—because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself

‘cause the world done whipped him so” (1641). She educates her children to love each other.

Although the Younger family fits in the category of “family disorganization,” Lena

provides her children with enough love and symbolically turns the family into a site oppos-

ing racism. Frazier considers the black family without a father as “family disorganization”

(“Problems” 270), and he comments, “disorganized families have failed to provide for their

emotional needs and have not provided the discipline and habits which are necessary for

personality development” (276).10 Although the Younger family loses the male head, Lena

follows Big Walter’s values and educates her children with love.11 More importantly, Lena

10 Frazier’s interpretation of“family disorganization”and“the matriarchal thesis,”which is explained

in the previous section, both see the absence of father in the black family as the reason that retards the

development of black society. Nevertheless, A Raisin in the Sun demystifies the two ideas by showing

that black women are not the ones who should be condemned; instead, their effort for the family and

the society should be rewarded. 11 Although the play does not reveal directly that how long Big Walter has been dead, it is possible that

he “has been dead for years,”as Hilton Als claims (71). The family is without a father. Particularly,

even when he was still alive, he seldom stayed at home; instead, he left home to work. Lena talks

about Big Walter, “I seen … him … night after night […] I seen him grow thin and old before he was

forty … working and working and working like somebody’s old horse”(1633). While the father is

absent, his children, especially boys, cannot have a proper model to learn and imitate. Therefore, the

absence of the father, according to Frazier, is the main reason for family disorganization (274).


in the Sun

131

provides their home with love so that the location of their home, even if just in a ghetto,

could be “a site of resistance and liberation struggle” (hooks, Yearning 43). Home is a place

where black people can restore their dignity and heal their wounds owing to the outside rac-

ist world (42). Creating a safe home full of love itself is necessary for resistance. Thus,

hooks announces, “For when a people no longer have the space to construct homeplace, we

cannot build a meaningful community of resistance” (Yearning 47). Interpreted in this way,

Lena indeed participates in racial struggle and resistance by providing her home with love

and safety.12

Not only does Lena create her home as a site of racial solidarity and, thus, an indirect

method of resistance, but she also resists white oppression based on her special experience

as a black woman. First, due to her lack of education, Lena insists on paying Beneatha’s tui-

tion for medical school. The insistence on education for black people is also a method of

racial liberation. As Collins explains, “Education has long served as a powerful symbol for

the important connections among self, change, and empowerment in African-American

communities” (210). Before Lena finalizes her decision to use the insurance money, she

strengthens her determination that part of the money be used for tuition. She expresses, “I

ain’t rightly decided [...] Some of it got to be put away for Beneatha and her schoolin’—and

ain’t nothing going to touch that part of it. Nothing” (Hansberry 1595). Lena does not think

of buying the house in Clybourne Park at first; instead, she thinks of Beneatha’s tuition im-

mediately. She is very sure of the importance of education for her daughter. When Lena was

young, she was worried about being lynched and was eager to run away from the South

(1609). Living in a patriarchal black community, Lena was told not to aim high even though

she was a capable woman (1638). She did not experience much education, so that her con-

12 For many feminists, especially white western feminists in the 1970s,“the family”is considered as a

“site of women’s oppression”(Pilcher and Whelehan 44). The patriarchal structure of the family

and the exploitation of female domestic labor are usually the targets to feminists’ criticism (45). Nev-

ertheless, for black men and women, the family is“an effective haven from racism”(47). Because of

the experience of slavery and racial discrimination, family is the place where black people can heal

their wounds and re-claim their dignity.


132

versation with Joseph Asagai, a scholar from Nigeria, is humorous; especially as her image

of Africa is restricted to Tarzan only (1601). Lena’s emphasis on Beneatha’s education could

be considered as an act of liberation from racial oppression and as compensation for her lack

of education.

Second, Lena mocks and mimics white people to gain a space for negotiation. When

Ruth is ill, but dares not to ask for a day off from her white master, Lena says that she would

call for her and tell her master that Ruth has the flu. Explaining why the flu is a proper ex-

cuse, Lena replies, “‘Cause it sounds respectable to ‘em. Something white people get, too.

They know ‘bout the flu. Otherwise they think you been cut up or something when you tell

‘em you sick” (1594). By saying so, Lena, mimicking Ruth’s white master, rationalizes her

excuse, and attains her goal. Lena appropriates the white master’s word to achieve her pur-

pose. She is successful because she is witty enough to laugh at the master’s racial discrimi-

nation and does not cause any direct attack against the authority. Based on her daily experi-

ence of getting along with white people, Lena’s mockery is funny, ironic, and clever, and it

works.

In addition, Lena’s decision to buy a house in an entirely white neighborhood is a brave

action to challenge the injustice of housing segregation. Crucially, she attacks not only the

segregation system but also the economic exploitation of black people. Lena explains,

“Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much

as other houses” (Hansberry 1618). In other words, the financial stress of buying a house for

black people is heavier than for white people; hence, in order to ease the burden of paying

by installments, Lena has to move into Clybourne Park and fight against housing discrimi-

nation.

Overall, Lena is not a submissive and passive woman who stays away from the racial

struggle while expecting black men to set her free. Even though she is not the head of the

family, it is obvious that she unites all the family members to reclaim their racial dignity. A

Raisin in the Sun records how black women struggle in the interlocking systems of race and

gender in the civil rights movement. Regarding anti-racism as the most urgent action at the

time, black women stayed behind the scenes of the social movement without being leaders,


in the Sun

133

but they did participate in it in their own way. The structure of the Younger family represents

the structure of black communities at the period of the civil rights movement. Unlike what

the matriarchal myth suggests, the black family and society in fact are ruled by male heads;

nevertheless, black women, unlike the stereotypical image of the domineering and emascu-

lating mammy, contribute a lot to the family and the movement. Based on the daily experi-

ence, Lena, being a responsible mother and taking good care of her family, spreads the wis-

dom of black women and practices black resistance simultaneously. With no ambition to

seize the power of leaders or to reproduce gender opposition, black women have a different

interpretation of a leader (Gyant 641), and they function as intermediator to bridge and ce-

ment family members and the movement participants. In short, by analyzing Lena’s every-

day life and the social context at her time, it is obvious that Lena is a woman with agency,

rather than an object who submits to the racist and sexist society without action.13 Her fem-

inist thought is therefore revealed by her ability to act, and when doing so, her action of an-

ti-racism is exposed, too.

V. Conclusion

While the civil rights movement and black resistance were mainly based on the estab-

lishment of patriarchy and masculinity, black women, staging behind the scenes, supported

men and helped them to regain their manhood. When Walter decides to sell the house to

Clybourne Park in order to earn more money, Beneatha considers this behavior as an assim-

ilation to white capitalist value. She retorts, “That is not a man. That is nothing but a tooth-

less rat” (Hansberry, 1640 emphasis added). Nevertheless, when Walter finally makes up his

mind to move into the new house and regains his racial dignity in response to Lindner’s offer,

Beneatha declares, “That’s what the man said” (1642 emphasis added). Apparently, Be-

13 Agency means“the ability to act or perform an action”(Ashcroft et al., 6). It is an important concept

in post-colonial studies because it refers to“the ability of post-colonial subjects to initiate action in

engaging or resisting imperial power”(6). It is appropriated here to show that black women, like Le-

na, have the ability to act and resist patriarchal and racist power, instead of being controlled by their

circumstances completely.


134

neatha also connects black resistance with the development of manhood. Responding to

Walter’s final decision, Lena happily tells Ruth, “He finally come into his manhood today,

didn’t he?” (1643). By replying yes, Ruth is also glad to see Walter’s transformation into a

man with a strong sense of masculinity. A Raisin in the Sun, therefore, ends with a success

that celebrates racial justice and freedom exercised mainly by black men, who are supported

and assisted by black women.

During the period of civil rights movement in the 20th century, African American peo-

ple cared about “interracial issues” more than “intraracial issues” (Harris 123). Since black

resistance to white racism is the top concern, some gender issues among the black commu-

nities were misjudged, such as black matriarchal ideology and emasculating mammies. In-

terestingly, examining black matriarchy, bell hooks finds that it is an image created by white

men in order to “establish a bond of solidarity with black men based on mutual sexism”

(Ain’t 79). In this way, black men may have regarded black women, not all women, as a

danger to their masculinity, and sexism is secure in the male-dominated society. Neverthe-

less, black sociologist Frazier traces the development of matriarchy back the slavery period

in black society (The Negro Family 481), which suggests that matriarchy, or what Frazier

names “matriarchate” (125), is a tradition in black families in the United States. Whether

black matriarchy is created by white or black men, as hooks or Frazier assert, it is sure that

black matriarchy explicitly expresses the dual oppression of racism and sexism on black

women. In this light, it is important to notice that while A Raisin in the Sun celebrates Afri-

can American dignity and pride at the end, it also successfully demystifies the ideology of

matriarchy by revealing the patriarchal structure of the Younger family and destroys the ste-

reotype of matriarchs by showing Lena’s feminist thought. The play, hence, may take a step

further to problematize the intersection of gender and race at the same time.

However, there is one more issue that needs to be noticed. The Younger family at the

end confirms the heritage of patriarchy, so that Walter regains his sense of masculinity to

fight against the outside racist world. Meanwhile, Lena, as well as other female family

members, helps Walter and unites the family together with their feminine power. It is clear

that Lena expresses black feminist thought based on her daily experience and agency, but it


in the Sun

135

is not clear whether Walter still retains his sexist attitude toward women or not at the end.

Before Walter becomes the head of the family, he blames his failure on women; nevertheless,

after he becomes the head, his attitude toward women thus needs a further discussion. Sally

Burke points out that Lena helps Walter to move beyond sexism, which rationalizes his fail-

ure and targets black women who emasculate men, and to turn to confront racism (92-93). In

other words, Burke believes that Walter realizes that it is racism, rather than sexism, that

causes his misery. Even though, whether his sexist attitude changes or not remains unclear.

There are two pieces of information related with Walter’s change. First, Walter’s sexist bias

against Beneatha’s decision of being a doctor is obvious, but at the end he proudly introduc-

es Beneatha to Lindner by saying, “And that’s my sister over there and she’s going to be a

doctor—and we are very proud—” (1642). By identifying his sister as a potential female

doctor, Walter’s sexism seems to shatter. Besides, the joyful scene of house moving by all

the family members together at the end represents possible harmonious gender relations in

the Younger family. Since there is not enough description about Walter’s sexism after he be-

comes the head of the family, echoing the success of black resistance and the wisdom of

black women, it is possible to suggest that Walter realizes the love from his female family

members and his sexism might start to be corrected.


136

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in the Sun

139

從家庭開始

──蘿琳．漢司白瑞《陽光下的乾葡萄》中的性別關係

與黑色反抗

施懿芹*

摘要

《陽光下的乾葡萄》（A Raisin in the Sun 1959）是百老匯第一齣由非裔女性劇作

家創作的戲劇，該劇作者蘿琳．漢司白瑞（Lorraine Hansberry 1930-1965）也是第一位

非裔作家獲得紐約戲劇評論獎（New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award）。故事背景設立

在 1950s年代的芝加哥，當時住宅地區實施種族分離制，《陽光下的乾葡萄》寫實地呈

現當時的歷史背景與非裔民權運動。為了瞭解性別與種族的雙重壓迫，本論文透過研

究楊格一家（the Younger family）的家庭結構分析其中的性別關係，而此家庭結構也

象徵性地代表民權時期黑人的社會結構。論文分為三個主要部份。第一部份提供一個

女性主義的視角，批判由母系家庭制與反種族歧視包裝下的父權意識形態。第二部份

聚焦於大華特（Big Walter）與華特（Walter），論證楊格一家由父權當家，並且男性特

質的建立對當時黑人的反種族歧視運動是直接相關。第三部份探討非裔女性加入社會

運動與展現自我性別解放的方式，並著重於楊格一家的媽媽角色，蓮娜•楊格（Mama

Lena Younger），討論她如何基於黑人女性的立場，進一步團結家庭成員對抗種族歧

視。簡言，當《陽光下的乾葡萄》頌揚民運時期非裔美國人的自尊與驕傲時，本文認

為此劇揭露出楊格家庭的父權結構，因而解構黑人母權社會的神話，而此劇也展現出

黑人女性思維，進而破解黑人女家長的負面刻板印象。

關鍵詞：蘿琳．漢司白瑞、《陽光下的乾葡萄》、民權運動、種族、性別、黑人母權制

* 淡江大學英美語言文化學系副教授

（收稿日期：105.05.02；通過刋登日期：105.09.07）

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