MINOR CHARCTERS

• lindner 'you people' pg116

  euphemism for black people - Hansberry represents a modern manifestation of racism through Lindner. 
• Hansberry represents a modern manifestation of racism through Lindner.
• ‘’Well it’s what you might call a sort of welcome committee, I guess. I mean.’ pg89


  'welcome committee' = ironic

  Heavy mitigation = softening, deflecting, evasion of his racism.

  White Americans have learnt how to have covert racism, but the racism itself had not changed - presentation has.

  Audience = WA = uncomfortable as H challenges them
• 'it is a matter of the people of clybourne park believeing, rightly or wrongly, as i say, that for the happniess of all concerned that out ne**o familie s are happier when they live in their own communities.' pg91


  'our' possesive pronoun - links back to slavery

  segregating lexical field

  segregation 'own communities' euphemism for saying they don't below around white middle class.

  non-fluency features - hesitation to mitigate racism
• Lindner 'where you people just arent wanted and where some elements - well - people can get awful worked up when they feel their whole way of life and everything they've every worked for is threatened.' pg93


  euphemism for the racist attacks on black families 'awful worked up'

  racist prejudice that believes black people are intruding on the peacful, working lives of WA.

  Filled with hatred, he believs he is doing the youngers a favour.

  Pathetic - he turns angry and slightly aggressive.
• Lindner = shy and timid, not threatening or abrasive of loud, polite and mannerly yet everything he says is an insult to the youngers.

  Filled with hatred.

  Mitigated racism - hansberry representing the new form of racism.
• 'i sure hope you people know what you are doing.' pg118


  euphemistic threat.
• George Murchinson = educated and wealthy, assimilationst african american.

  George is pedantic, making literary allusions 'prometheus' when he knows the information is lost among audience.
• 'the only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich white people are rich coloured people.' pg33


  Assimilation of rich african americans caused them to gain internalized racism to please the wealthy white people.
• 'what have you done to your head - i mean your hair?' pg59


  Reformulation = creates a sense that george sees pan-africanism as losing mind.

  Assimilation has taken control of AA ideas of being african
• 'lets face it baby, your heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts!'' pg60


  Shaming AA heritage - using dysphemistic language

  'baby' = derogatory, belittling beneatha in their relationship = power imbalance.
• 'your all whacked up with bitterness, man.' pg63
• '(he tries to kiss her. she moves away.) look, we've had a nice evening; lets not spoil it huh?...' pg72


  feminist lens = men gain nothing from the relationship without sexual pleasure.
• Mrs Johnson = comic relief, caricature of the nosy, jealous neighbour.

  Hansberry employs the Mrs. Johnson character in order to point out the explosive realities that await the Youngers for being the first blacks to move into Clybourne Park

  Insensitive and unkind, indelicate.
• 'i bet this time next month y'all's names will have been in the papers plenty - (holding up her hands to mark off each word of the headline she can see infront of her.) 'N*****S INVADE CLUBOURNE PARK - BOMBED!'pg77


  exclamative and exagerrated speech.

  She resents their desires to transgress and escape from where they + she lives.

  derives pleasure from threateninbg the youngers.

  She has accepted societal place.
• Ms Johnson ‘you sure one proud-acting bunch of coloured folks’ pg79


  Insulting the younger, this rise out of the position in society that African Americans have been placed into is frowned upon, even by other African Americans.

  Frowns upon Beneathas education - jealousy?
• 'well i always think like Booker T.Washington said that time - 'education has spoiled many a good plough hand.' pg79


  She has a defeatest brna dof assimilation.

  Famous assimilationist.
• Asagai 'you wear it well...very well...mutilated hair and all' pg43


  Picks up on the assimilation 'mutilated' - lexis recalls slavery - even after the abolishment of slavery WA continue to brutalise AA.

  Slow sense of admiration - emotional connection formed between Asagai and Beneatha.

  Reformulation 'very well' conduits a sense of dramatic realisation of her beauty that pan-africanism brings.

  European hair beauty standard = straight, straightening hair to gain the societal benefits
• Asagai 'and it is ugly that way to you?'pg43


  LH questions the motivations behind assimilation through asagai, does it stem from a hatred of african culture - formed in this idea that european hair (straightened) is beautiful yet black hair is rural and ugly. Context of the time yet also is still a current idea today.

  This moment causes Beneatha to cut her hair - questioning identity
• ASAGAI 'why, you were quite glad when i went away, what happened?'

  BENEATHA: 'you went away.' pg42

  Romantic connection shown through their mirroring of one another.

  Could argue that this is due to a sense of equality between the two.
• ASAGAI: 'this is not so much the profile of a hollywood queen as perhaps a queen of the nile.' pg44


  She looks beautiful in an authentic way, because it is her heritage. Rather than blonde, pale and conventionally attractive (e.g. Marilyn Monroe) eurocentric idea of beauty.

  Asagai is saying she is breaking out of this, a pan-African idea of beauty.
• 'what you just said - about the circle. it isnt a circle - it is simply sa long line - as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity...' pg106


  Hansberry, through Asagai, says that things do get better, but it is hard to see. Idealism is an upward sloped line.

  Hope is a very gradual line = the reality is that holding onto that hope is what makes the hope attainable, it takes undeniable humanity to hold onto hope.

  Philosophical perspective - no predetermined outcomes, he challenges fixed views of life and encourages a more dynamic and open-minded approach.
• ASAGAI: 'So that now you can give up on the ailing human race on account of [walters mistake].You talk about what good is struggle; what good is anything? Where are all going? And why are we bothering?'  pg106


  Asagai picks on Beneathas fatalistic attitude and critiques that she has relied achieving her dreams on the insurance money: the money of a man. :

  He observes there must be something wrong in your world if your dreams “depend on the death of a man.”

  Asagai represents a Black identity based on independence won through struggle.
• ASAGAI: 'For a woman it should be enough.'


  Asagai declares that love should be enough for Beneatha to come to Nigeria with him. In fact, he believes that love is a sufficient reason behind any action she takes. Beneatha, however, doesn’t want to become an “episode” in someone’s drama, and thinks love is not reason enough to make major decisions in one’s life. Beneatha doesn’t argue that she wants love, she wants a career, too. Asagai’s intellectual, romanticized view of the world is in stark contrast to Beneatha’s pragmatic view.