Revolutionary Homosexuality in Les Blancs
Arielle Raymos
ARIELLE RAYMOS was born in St. Augustine, Florida, but spent most of her life with a veritable zoo of rescued dogs, cats, and birds in Manchester, Tennessee. She graduated with a BA in English from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee and an MA in English Literature & Theory from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. She is currently a PhD student in literary studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her main passions in life are Lorraine Hansberry, The Beatles, and her purple 1997 Honda Odyssey; at any given moment, she is probably watching her complete box set of Magnum P.I. (1980-1988).
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Abstract
In Les Blancs (1970), Lorraine Hansberry intentionally positions Eric Matoseh, a mixed-race character who is suggested to be in a homosexual relationship with a white man, as possessing an identity that melds seemingly dissonant aspects of race and sexuality; this identity allows Eric to reach a truly revolutionary consciousness. A close reading of the play demonstrates that Eric’s sense of identity is the most cohesive and fulfilling amongst the characters, despite his being between communities in terms of race and sexuality. Various cultural, social, and political obstacles prevented Hansberry’s unpublished writing on sexuality—anticipating modern critical feminist and race theories—from being published or staged. However, examining Hansberry’s posthumously published work, such as Les Blancs, is a necessary step in expanding the view of her complex and contradictory life and work outside of A Raisin in the Sun.
In Les Blancs (1970), Lorraine Hansberry intentionally positions Eric Matoseh, a mixed-race character who is suggested to be in a homosexual relationship with a white man, as possessing an identity that melds seemingly dissonant aspects of race and sexuality; this identity allows Eric to reach a truly revolutionary consciousness. A close reading of the play demonstrates that Eric’s sense of identity is the most cohesive and fulfilling amongst the characters, despite his being between communities in terms of race and sexuality. Various cultural, social, and political obstacles prevented Hansberry’s unpublished writing on sexuality—anticipating modern critical feminist and race theories—from being published or staged. However, examining Hansberry’s posthumously published work, such as Les Blancs, is a necessary step in expanding the view of her complex and contradictory life and work outside of A Raisin in the Sun.

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