A Raisin in the sun by Lorraine Hansberry: challenges and trends presented by an african-american play

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to show that theater is an effective way of selfrepresentation as well as a powerful weapon used in order to subvert hegemonic values. When considering contemporary drama, mainly the one produced by the so-called minority groups , it is possible to find several authors who made of their works site for protest against oppression, violence and discrimination imposed by the excluding colonial discourse. One clear example of such a work is the play A Raisin in the Sun written by the African-American writer Lorraine Hansberry. The author shows that theater can represent a possibility for the historically excluded groups to bring into public awareness the situation of oppression lived by their community, protesting against it and subverting the hegemonic discourse which tends to value just canonical works and stories. In contemporary times, many stories/histories taken for a long time as marginal or ex-centric , such as the African-Americans for example, became known through transgressive and subverting productions that came out as an attempt to express the self, giving voice to groups so far excluded - or as Hutcheon referred to them, marginalized - rewriting their stories/histories. After some initial considerations related to the theory of drama, we intend to highlight some of the challenges that the Other faces while searching for his/her identity and better opportunities promised by the American Dream in the play A Raisin in the Sun. We also intend to present some of the challenges presented by such work during the translation process due to its strong cultural peculiarities. Besides, we intend to discuss some of these challenges to be faced by Intercultural Translation in A Raisin in the Sun