RS - critical quotations

osborne & WJW - universal

“the youngers aspirations are universal, not filtered through their race”

“a human tale about an American family”

osborne - Walter ending

“Hansberry interweaves strong male emotion (that is neither anger nor emasculating), to signal the profound depth of his feelings of pride and self-worth, unattainable prior to this point”

osborne - AAVE walter

The effect of staging a stylised form of AAVE as a valid dramatic vehicle bravely counters… previous racist renderings of black peoples speech in theatre history.”

Osborne - George

“the american (believing he embodies progress) is more resistant to female autonomy than the nigerian.”

osborne - asagai and beneatha

“the intra-racial nuance hansberry creates… highlights african americans lack of access to a continuum of black history and knowledge to dramatise questions of african reidentification”

julius lester (think freud)

“the pivotal character of the play, the black male castrated by the blade of the american dream”

osborne - walter scapegoating

“his generalising scapegoating of black women avoids holding white racism accountable and compounds his powerlessness”

osborne - ruth and beneatha pro choice

“ruths support of beneathas ambitions and her own assessment of motherhood (as dictated by material circumstance) heralds the future era of A Womans Right to Choose”

osborne/hansberry - mama

“the black matriarch incarnate” “the embodiment of the negro will to transcendence”

osborne - mama

shows that “valuing the past as a foundation should not suppress present potential”

osborne - beneatha

“she is a woman unmoored from traditional structures”

anne cheney - unities of time, place & action

“hansberry needed this rather traditional form to control the innovative ideas and themes”

hansberry - ghettos

“we must come out of the ghettoes of america, because the ghettoes are killing us”

“slum-slaughtered”

hansberry - women oppressed

“the most oppressed group of any oppressed group will be its women”