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Music Writing and Community Construction in A Raisin in the Sun

  • Li Lixin EMAIL logo und Jiang Yuexia
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 5. November 2025
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Abstract

Lorraine Hansberry, African American playwright, is hailed as a pioneer of Black theater with her seminal work A Raisin in the Sun. She artfully weaves elements of African-American popular arts such as spirituals, gospel, blues, and folk dance into the fabric of the play. Focusing on the play’s rich musical landscape, this article argues that music in the play functions as both a cultural bond that sustains collective memory and pursues harmony, and an aesthetic space that exposes individual differences and accommodates conflicts. The aim is to elucidate how these artistic elements awaken African American’s consciousness of cultural subjectivity and confront the problem of racial discrimination, thereby promoting, to a certain extent, the construction and development of ethnic community.


Note

This article is supported by the General Program of National Social Science Fund of China “Research on the Museum Writing of Victorian British Authors” (21BWW045).


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Published Online: 2025-11-05
Published in Print: 2025-11-04

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Heruntergeladen am 7.11.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/arcadia-2025-2012/html
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