A Multidisciplinary Research Journal - Devanga Arts College

even in physical appearance like dress and hairstyle and no professional choice. The governing
body of the Youngers new neighborhood the Clybourn Park Improvement Association sends Mr.
Linder to persuade them not to move into the white clybourn park neighbourhood.
Mr. Linder and the people represented can only see the color of the Youngers to keep
them from moving threatens to tear apart the Youngers family and the values for which it stands
ultimately. Youngers respond to this discrimination with defiance and strength. The play
powerfully demonstrates that the way to deal with discrimination is to stand up it rather than
allow it to pass unchecked.
The question of gender and race have made black women’s path an everyday struggle
against the double jeopardy that they are involved into for being both black and woman. The
women characters of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun are not absent of this double form
of discrimination. As the three black women characters of the play Mama, Ruth and Beneatha
constitute our object of analysis in this work. In A Raisin in the Sun Beneatha Younger is an
atheist opinionated and at times self -centered. She prides herself on being independent. Asagai
criticizes her for being both too independent by not wanting to marry and too dependent not to
leave America. When she realizes this dependence, she gains a new perspective on her dream
and a new energy to attain it in her own way.
Throughout the play Beneatha’s character proposes that marriage is not necessary for
women and that women can and should have ambitious career goals. She even approaches an
abortion debate allowing the topic of abortion to enter the action in an era when abortion was
illegal. One of her most radical friends Ruth discovers that she is pregnant but fears that that will
put more financial pressure on her family members. Beneatha also scolds for her irresponsibility
of having rejected both marriage and motherhood.
Beneatha of Raisin dates with two different men Joseph Asagai and George Murchison.
She is at her happiest with Asagai, her Nigerian boyfriend who has nicknamed her “Alaiyo”
which means “one of whom Bread-food is not enough” (21). She is at her most depressed and
angry with George pompous affluent African-American boyfriend. She identifies much more
with Asagai’s interest in rediscovering his African roots than with George’s interest in
assimilating into white culture. She is inspired by the attentions of a Nigerian suitor instead of a
processed straightened hairstyle and Nigerian dress.