The rhetoric of freedom in Lorraine Hansberry’s play

摘要

Lorraine Hansberry’s The Drinking Gourd has been subjected to systematic censorship and silencing after it was written for NBC. Being politically suggestive of system disruption, it is regarded as a challenge to the political life of America in the 1960s. It, however, is more than political content. It enacts an aesthetics that sets in motion content and language. Not only is it interventionist and disruptive on the level of content but this content is strengthened by the collaborative function of its form. Therefore, it employs rhetorical mechanisms while at the same time turns into the very mechanisms it is making use of. The rhetorical mechanisms the writers of this article intend to explore in the text of this play are a part of Henry Louise Gates' notion of signifyin(g) that appears in the form of speakerly text and talking text. The article probes into scenes of confrontation between master and slave to explore moments of signifyin(g) in the two rhetorical modes named, and reveals how the identity of the master is constructed by the identity of the slave in a cultural continuum that can be disrupted when consciousness of the slaves rises about their human worth and sociopolitical identity. It transcends mere rhetorical play and through the embodiment of a vernacular structure turns into the drinking gourd itself in texture and form. Therefore, the writers of this article suggest, it is interventionist for it both suggests and practices dismantling of identity construction in the system of slavery through raising consciousness.