A Raisin in the Sun (1959) is the first play written by an African American woman to be produced in a Broadway theater, and the writer, Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), became the first black playwright to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Set in a segregated Chicago neighborhood in the 1950s, A Raisin in the Sun realistically reflects the historical background of the African American civil rights movement. This paper examines gender relations in the Younger family through an analysis of the family structure, which symbolically represents black society during the period of the civil rights movement, in order to problematize the dual oppression of gender and race. Divided into three body sections, the paper first provides a feminist critique of the patriarchal ideology disguised as matriarchy and antiracism. By centering on Big Walter and Walter, the second section argues that the Younger family is male headed, and the establishment of masculinity is important for black resistance against racism at the time. The third section constitutes a new image of African American women by exploring the way they participate in the social movement and how they achieve gender liberation, and it especially focuses on Mama Lena Younger, who helps her family unite to resist racism according to her standpoint as a black woman. In short, while A Raisin in the Sun celebrates African American dignity and pride at the end, it also successfully demystifies the ideology of matriarchy by revealing the male-headed structure of the Younger family and destroys the stereotype of matriarchs by showing Lena's feminist thought.
