Les Blancs (4 page)

Hansberry’s cognizance of being black and female formed the basis for her comprehensive world-view. Just as she could accept fully the implications and responsibility of both blackness and femaleness, so was she also aware of the many other competing and equally legitimate causes which grow out of humankind’s misery. The one issue that deeply concerned her but that she did not address publicly was homosexuality. The repressive atmosphere of the 1950s, coupled with the homophobia of the general society, including politically left organizations, caused her to suppress her writings that explored issues of sexuality and gender relations. Nevertheless, she pushed and teased these boundaries by probing the nature of the individual
within the specifics of culture, ethnicity, and gender. In the midst of her expansiveness, she refused to diminish the pain, suffering or truths of any one group in order to benefit another, a factor which made her plays particularly rich and her characters thoroughly complex. Hence, she could write authentically about a black family in
A Raisin in the Sun
and yet produce, in the same instance, a play which appealed to both blacks and whites, bridging for a moment the historical and cultural gaps between them.

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 commonality 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.”
⁸
When she turned inward, she saw not only color but gender as well—a prism of humanity.

Her best-known play,
A Raisin in the Sun
, dramatizes the seductiveness of American materialistic values. The title and theme are taken from a Langston Hughes poem, “Harlem,” which asks: “What happens to a dream deferred?” The dreams of the Youngers, a black family living in South Side Chicago, have gone unfulfilled too long. Their hopes of enjoying the fruits of freedom and equality have been postponed as they struggle merely to survive economically. Into this setting comes $10,000 insurance money paid upon the death of Walter Younger, Sr. Lena Younger (Mama) and her adult son, Walter, clash over the money’s use. Mama wants to save some for her daughter Beneatha’s college education and make a down payment on a new house in order to get the family out of the cramped quarters and shared bathroom of their tiny apartment. Walter wants to invest in a liquor store. They share the dream of improving the family’s situation, but Walter, consumed with the frustrations of his dead-end chauffeur’s job, believes that the money itself is synonymous with
life. The possession of money and the things it can buy will make him a man in the eyes of his family and society, he asserts. His is a popular notion of manhood, which rests on the hidden oppression of the very women he loves, and ultimately, of black men as well.

The intrusion of American cultural values is evident both in this tug of war and in the character of Lena. Mama, who initially fits the popular stereotype of the Black Mammy, seems to be the domineering head of the household. She rules everyone’s life, even making a down payment on a house in an all-white neighborhood without consulting her son. However, as she begins to comprehend the destructive effect of her actions on Walter, she relinquishes her authority and gives him the balance of the money to invest as he wishes. Walter’s elation is short-lived, however, because he loses the money by entrusting it to his “partner,” a slick con man who disappears. In an effort to recover his loss, Walter tells his family that he will accept money from his prospective neighbors who would rather buy him off than live next door to him. The decision is a personal test for Walter, for he is sorely tempted to sacrifice his pride and integrity for mercenary values: “There ain’t no causes—there ain’t nothing but taking in this world, and he who takes most is smartest—and it don’t make a damn bit of difference
how.”
⁹
In a highly dramatic moment, Walter gets down on his knees and shows his mother how he will beg, if necessary, for the white man’s money—scratching his head and laughing in the style of the old Uncle Tom. Even with this display, Mama does not berate him, but, rather, surrounds him with her circle of love and compassion, saying to others who have witnessed this scene:

Just as the stereotyped image of the Mammy gives way to the caring, understanding mother, historic cornerstone of the black family, so the materialism of Walter crumbles before his reaffirmation of traditional values of pride and selfhood. He tells the baffled representative of the hostile white community that he and his family will move into their house because his father and the generations before him earned that right. Walter speaks the words and takes the action, but Mama provides the context. She, who embodies the race’s will to transcend and who forms that critical link between the past and the future, articulates and transmits the traditions of the race to the next generation. Her wisdom and compassion provide the context for him to attain true manhood, to advance materially without becoming materialistic.

The story of the Younger family is the story of a struggle to retain human values and integrity while forcing change in a society where human worth is measured by the dollar. Through the supporting character, Asagai, an African intellectual, the personal dynamics of that struggle become a microcosm of the struggle for liberation throughout the world and especially in Africa. Hansberry achieves this connection through Asagai’s response to Walter’s foolish mistake. He warns the disappointed Beneatha that she is using her brother’s error as an excuse to give up on “the ailing human race” and her own participation in it. Beneatha argues that Walter’s action is no different from the pettiness, ignorance, and foolishness of other men who turn idealistic notions of freedom and independence into absurd dreams. But Asagai reacts vehemently, proclaiming that one mistake does not stop a movement. Others will correct that mistake and go on, probably to make errors of their own—but the result, however halting, is movement, change and advancement forward. Thus, in a parallel action, Asagai affirms Mama’s loving support of Walter by restating her position in the sociopolitical terms of African freedom struggles. While Mama may seem to be merely conservative, clinging to an older generation, it is she who, in fact, is the mother of revolutionaries; it is she who makes possible the change and movement of the new generation.

Despite Mama’s importance to the theme, Walter remains a worthy and unique counterpoint. In his own way, Walter signals the wave of the future. He is restless, hungry, angry—a victim of his circumstance
but at the same time the descendant of his proud forebears, struggling to transcend his victimhood. When he, in a drunken flare, leaps onto a table and assumes the stance of an African chieftain, he unconsciously embodies that proud and revolutionary spirit which is his heritage. When he quietly refuses the white citizens’ payoff at the end of the play, he becomes the symbolic father of the aggressive, articulate black characters who will stride the boards in the 1960s. Indeed, Walter, who has begun to shed the materialism of the majority culture, leads the march to a different drum.

Testimony to Hansberry’s craftsmanship is the fact that these complex themes and perceptions are presented unobtrusively, emerging naturally as a result of action and dialogue. A master of heightened realism, she carefully orchestrates the moods of the play, using highly symbolic, nonrealistic actions when needed and guiding both performer and audience through a maze of emotional and humorous moments. The play makes a social statement, but not at the expense of its ability to engage. In fact, the miracle of this popular play is that Hansberry successfully involves her audience, of all colors, in a complete identification and support for the struggles of this family.

The next Hansberry play which the public would see was
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window
. By the time it opened on Broadway in 1964, Hansberry’s cancer had already been diagnosed, and she was in and out of hospitals, often needing a wheelchair to get to and from rehearsals. Opening to mixed critical reviews,
Sign
played for 101 performances and closed the night of her death, January 12, 1965. It was destined to go down in theatrical history books as a triumph, however, because a loving public and her theater colleagues fought to keep it open, raising money and donating time to help it survive.

A play of ideas,
Sign
angered and confused critics for two basic reasons. First, it was not about the black experience; in fact, it had only one black character in it. Lorraine Hansberry, hailed by the establishment as a new black voice, had written about white artists and intellectuals who lived in Greenwich Village. Second, the play firmly opposed the vogue of urbane, sophisticated ennui and the glorification of intellectual impotence so typical of the period. It dared to challenge the apathy of the American intellectual and his indifference to the serious problems overtaking the world.

In this play, plot is secondary to character and serves only as a vehicle for Sidney Brustein’s personal odyssey toward self-discovery. Sidney has agreed to work on the campaign of a local politician who has promised to bring social reform to his New York neighborhood. Through a series of confrontations with family and friends, Sidney is given an intimate look at the human frailties which lie behind the mask of each character. The most startling revelations center on his wife and sisters-in-law: Iris, his beautiful, long-haired protégée who no longer wishes to play the ingenue role and desires instead the tinsel of stardom; Gloria, the sensitive call girl who commits suicide because she cannot bear her burden of guilt and loneliness; and Mavis, the bourgeois Philistine whose image belies the painful compromise and courage of her personal life. Sidney, Hansberry’s symbol of modern man, stares human ugliness full in the face and seems powerless against it: “Wrath has become a poisoned gastric juice in the intestine. One does not
smite
evil anymore: one holds one’s gut, thus—and takes a pill.”
¹¹

When he discovers the duplicity and corruption of his politician friend, he has every reason to return to his posture of intellectual apathy, condemning in colorful prose the world around him. But his odyssey through the maze of human suffering has changed him; Gloria’s death has changed him:

This strong affirmation of life in the face of human frailty and cosmic absurdity was unusual in the world of professional theater, but very consistent with the beliefs of Lorraine Hansberry.

Upon the author’s death in 1965, two of the plays in this volume—
What Use Are Flowers?
and
Les Blancs
—remained essentially unfinished works. Only
The Drinking Gourd
was complete, having been commissioned in 1959 for the National Broadcasting Company. It was to be the first in a series of ninety-minute television dramas commemorating the Centennial of the Civil War. It was never produced. Deemed too controversial for the American television-viewing public, it was put on the shelf with notations commending its excellence and was later published posthumously by Robert Nemiroff.