ABSTRACT

In portraying the Hansberry desire to gain subjectivity in a society devoted to the erasure of the black self, he renders a disconcerting view of the black male subject. This chapter begins by theorizing black male subjectivity in both literary and nonliterary contexts. Steven Cohan and Linda Shires offer a comprehensive definition of subject, one that takes into account its dual or even contradictory meanings. Walter's quest for subject status takes what it considers two inherently contradictory forms: a search for an African Americanist subjectivity rooted in black oral and vernacular culture. Berndt Ostendorf's distinction between oral and literate cultures is appropriate here: Oral cultures are dramatic, literate cultures epistemic in their focus of attention, the first develops the resources of spontaneity, style, affective performance, and catharsis. The chapter offers a configuration of black male subjectivity which is filtered through and mediated by a conflicted and limiting notion of American masculinity.