In “Raisins in the Sun”, the hero Walter Lee in this drama is a typical black male image. As a black man, just like his other African ancestors, he encounters inequality in American social life everywhere. Treatment, living at the bottom of the society, living in distress; as an American, like other Americans, he has his “American Dream”-to become a successful, wealthy and admired man and improve the living conditions of his family. This “dual identity and dual consciousness determines that they must face two traditions, namely their own African cultural traditions and Western cultural traditions. The former is their cultural origin, while the latter is their reality of existence.” The collision and conflict of two identities and two consciousnesses makes black men like Walter Lee fall into an identity crisis. As men, their masculinity also faces the threat of being “castrated” due to racial discrimination and economic difficulties. Therefore, they urgently want to prove the existence of their masculinity in some way to gain self-identity.
The author Hans Bailey Lorraine provides two ways to seek identity. One is to improve economic conditions and promote social status in order to gain self-affirmation and social identity; the other is to trace the history of black people in order to be in history. To find a sense of belonging in order to obtain a certain rather than erratic identity.
In American society, due to the disadvantaged position of blacks in society, it is difficult for blacks to fundamentally change their situation through the improvement of their economic status before changing the chronic illness of white supremacy and white centrism. Like the protagonist Walter Lee in “Raisins in the Sun”, black men question and lose themselves because of the embarrassment of life and the blow of reality. However, by recognizing their position in the long history, black men can also find their own sense of belonging, liberate the sealed masculinity, and gain self-identity.
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