Reading Lorraine Hansberry’s Selected Play In the Light of Henry Louis Gates

Abstract

The purpose of writing this research is to highlight some concepts which are proposed by Henry Louis Gates. The analysis will focus on the African American literary critic, filmmaker, historian, and public intellectual in Hansberry's selected plays (1965-1930). She was the first African woman to write plays and her plays performed on Broadway. Also, the stu dy shows the critical analysis of the speech by Cats. He was one of the well-known figures in African American thinking about lighting up the concepts of double 'voicedness' and 'signifying'. Gates explains that signifying in black discuses means modes of figuration itself. We can say that the signifying concept includes signs, testifying, loud talking, calling out one’s name, and playing the dozens. According to Gates, the Black concept of signifying differs from its donatives meanings. Typically meanings of this word in English are not satisfactory. Gates in most of his works tries to announce and develop double-voicedness in African American literature. He thinks that African American literature is based on two voices and societies, white and black. In the end, he stresses that the distinctiveness of African American literature will be born from the merging of these two discourses. The Gates' concepts will be applied in A Raisin in the Sun. We will analyze the concepts, elements, and dramatic works that she has created. The researcher will explain why it is claimed that the idea of "double voice" can be traced in the dramatic works mentioned. In same time, Both American and African cultures and voices will be highlighted separately and retrospectively.

Keywords

• Double-voicedness, Signifying, Ethnicity, Racism, Filmmaker, Hansberry, Gates.