The document analyzes Lorraine Hansberry's play Les Blancs and the character of the African Woman who appears throughout. The Woman represents African identity and culture. While some see her solely as the conscience of the character Tshembe, the author argues she has a greater symbolic role as a personification of Africa challenging notions of identity. Her appearances coincide with Tshembe embracing his African identity over his European side. The Woman's gender and portrayal as a warrior are also significant as Hansberry reappropriates stereotypes to return symbolic figures to their African roots and challenge the audience's perceptions.

1. The Woman as a Representation of Africa
by Jeremy Borgia
In the captivating prologue of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs, the audience meets a
mysterious African Woman (referred to throughout the text, and thus throughout this paper, as
“the Woman”). Hansberry describes her as “majestic and motionless…Black-skinned and
imposing, cheeks painted for war, above her waist a girdle of hammered silver…She advances
slowly, majestically, to mounting drumbeats, in an unmistakeable dance of the
warriors” (Hansberry 41). After the prologue she sporadically appears throughout the play,
though her initial entrance sets the tone for the entire work by thematically providing a historical
and cultural context for the drama to build upon. Some critics, including Philip Effiong, assert
that the Woman’s role is as Tshembe’s conscience and spirit. However, this fails to acknowledge
her greater role as the representative of African identity and culture which, though a significant
part of Tshembe’s development and even conscience, is not tied to Tshembe in particular; rather,
the Woman is a personification of African culture and the interlaced cultural consciousness
which works most apparently in Tshembe as he eventually embraces his African identity and his
corresponding role in the resistance. Although the use of the African woman warrior to represent
Africa—from a feminist or anti-colonialist perspective—may initially seem “mentally
colonized” or even stereotypical, I will argue that Hansberry deliberately reappropriates those
notions within the larger context of anti-colonialism. By doing so, Hansberry invites her
audience to reevaluate perceptions of African identity and culture.

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Many critics have raised some interesting and valid points about the Woman and the
thematic role that she plays in Hansberry’s work. Philip Effiong identifies Hansberry’s
vacillation between realism and expressionism: the realism of the overarching plot and conflict
versus the expressionism of the Woman “who animates and sensationalizes Hansberry's thematic
vision, and who embodies and actualizes the African socio-aesthetic attributes and belief systems
that Hansberry advances” (273). Olga Barrios underlines the significance of the warrior’s gender:
“It is important to underline the fact that in Hansberry’s play it is a woman who is a militant and
takes that step into the struggle, offering a fuller depiction of a gender so simplified by male
playwrights of the subsequent Movement” (30). To Barrios, this is especially important because
African women are and were a twice oppressed group—they are marginalized because of their
gender, within an already marginalized group—and thus have more reason to be militant.
Ultimately, Barrios arrives at the conclusion that “The African woman dancer symbolizes the
spirit and land of Africa. The woman is Africa’s outcry to be defended from rape, exploitation
and scars caused by colonialism” (34). Indeed, the Woman’s gender is quite significant, and is a
point which we will return to after a closer look into the text. Some critics have discussed the
thematic placement of the Woman, noting her paradoxical nature: preserving principal African
prototypes, while perpetuating a Eurocentric literary view. Ultimately, instances of expressionism
with the Woman are both rare and brief, and a notable digression from the underlying realism of
the play. So, then, what value does the Woman add? Rather than strengthening the Eurocentric
view, she strengthens the African identity of the play, challenging notions of gender and racial
identity.

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The Woman’s participation in the play marks Tshembe’s journey from disinterested
expatriate to revolutionary warrior. She appears in select scenes of the play as an expression of
Tshembe’s inner struggle with his true, African identity, which she symbolizes. In 1.3 she
appears at the end of Tshembe’s and Charlie’s conversation: “It is as if [Tshembe] has been
awaiting something all along and now at last she appears: the Woman as in the Prologue,
majestic and motionless, spear in hand. Tshembe is instantly transfixed, his senses alerted, eyes
far away, though she is upstage and he cannot see her” (Hansberry 80). Tshembe’s attention
stolen completely, the scene becomes a silent cold battle, revealing to the audience the turmoil
within Tshembe’s heart and identity. He speaks to Charlie, saying that the Woman follows him,
even in London, signifying the crisis of identity—African vs. European, Intellectual vs. Rebel—
Tshembe has been facing even before his arrival home. Most significant is his final line with
Hansberry’s stage direction:
(Addressing the Woman directly—but still without ever turning to look at her, for
there is no need to: she has overrun the terrain of his mind) NO! I WILL NOT
GO! It is not my affair anymore! (She circles in movements symbolic of the life
of the people, binding him closer) I have a wife and son now! I have named him
Abioseh after my father and John after hers. (She signifies the slaughter, the
enslavement) I know all that! But it is not my affair anymore! (He sinks to his
knees) I don’t care what happens here—anywhere! (She drops and writhes in
agony) I am not responsible! (She rises: a warrior summoning him urgently,
insistently, unrelenting) It is not my affair! (Abruptly silence, as she sweeps up
the spear and halts, holding it vertical before her. Tshembe turns to face her. She

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holds it rigid for an instant, then tosses it, still vertical, to him, and he catches it
instinctively. Screaming as he clutches it) I HAVE RENOUNCED ALL
SPEARS!!! (81)
This passage is significant for the Woman because it exhibits her role as an antagonistic separate
identity. By performing Tshembe’s inner struggle with his competing racial and cultural identities
as an actual physical struggle with the Woman, Hansberry was able to depict Tshembe’s “double
consciousness”—to invoke Du Bois’s terminology—as both an African and a partaker of
European culture. She depicts his African identity as a catalyst towards action; yet, in this the
first act, Tshembe is still resistant, hopeful for a peaceful resolution, trying to convince himself
that it is not his affair to bother with anymore. By invoking his European wife and son, he
demonstrates his belief that his roots are now solidly European. Hansberry’s decision to place the
Woman in a back-and-forth with Tshembe reveals that her identity is separate from his,
problematizing some critics’ notions that she is Tshembe’s conscience. Rather, in the above
quote, the author states that the Woman “circles in movements symbolic of the life of the
people,” showing that she is, indeed, a metonym for Africa.
We see the Woman again in 2.3, when Tshembe learns of Kumalo’s arrest. This event is a
turning point for Tshembe, as he comes to the realization that peaceful diplomacy will not work
as he had hoped. Hansberry indicates that drums begin flickering. Her directions read:
The lights dim out on the others as the drums throb and he turns away. And now
at last it comes—laughter, slowly at first, then rising uncontrollably. The drums

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build to a climax and—abruptly—silence: the laughter dies in his throat at the
Woman appears. He straightens slowly to face her. (106)
It is here that Tshembe acknowledges the Woman’s reality and, with her, his own African
identity. He recognizes his place within the larger context of his cultural identity, and plays his
part, turning to face and accept her. From this point in the story, Tshembe claims his role as an
agent of change, rather than a mere observer. Philip Effiong extends further this scene’s
significance, positing that “the Woman’s position is antithetical to that of Tshembe’s European
wife, who typifies colonial intrusion and foments African social disintegration and complacence
in the face of repression” (Effiong 277). Just as Tshembe’s wife—emblematic of the European
culture to which Tshembe diverts his attention—is not representative of Tshembe’s individual
conscious, but of the larger European culture, so too the Woman’s role and identity is superior to
and larger than Tshembe’s individuality. Her significance expands beyond Tshembe, though in
the play it is revealed through contact with his character.
The Woman reappears in the final moments of the play after Tshembe has claimed his
role as a revolutionary, killed his brother Abioseh, and watched as Madame was killed in the
ensuing crossfire of the battle. Her appearance signifies his final transformation and acceptance
of his African-ness. The action of the scene represents the action required for Tshembe’s choice;
words were not enough.
With the knowledge that the Woman represents African identity and collective memory,
let us return to the point made earlier by Barrios, that the Woman’s gender is key to her identity.
In her book Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, Anne
McClintock argues that “race, gender and class are not distinct realms of experience, existing in

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splendid isolation from each other nor can they be simply yoked together retrospectively like
armatures of Lego. Rather, they come into existence in and through each other” (5). What
experience, then, is symbolized by Hansberry’s choice to embody the African identity in a black
woman? In her book, McClintock argues that imperialism redefined gender, assigning
colonialists a male role of domination, while the colonized were seen as female: subservient,
fecund, and conquerable. Gender identity became less about biological sex and more about
political and economic relationships. Regarding European depictions of the New World,
McClintock indicates that
The boundary figures are female. Here, women mark, quite literally, the margins
of the new world but they do so in such a way as to suggest a profound
ambivalence in the European male. In the foreground, the explorer is of a piece
—fully armored, erect and magisterial, the incarnation of male imperial power.
Caught in his gaze, the woman is naked, subservient and vulnerable to his
advance. (26)
With this lens in mind, it is potentially troublesome—to say the least—for Hansberry to use a
female body to represent Africa. Yet, it becomes quite clear “that if Hansberry appears to
rehearse old clichés concerning Africans, it is better to deconstruct them” (Gabrielle 148). The
Woman, rather, represents a link between blacks and their past, a lieu de mémoire—to use Pierre
Nora’s term, which conveys the process through which “whether deliberately or not, individual
group memory selects certain landmarks of the past—places, artworks, dates; persons, public or
private, well-known or obscure, real or imagined—and invest them with symbolic and political
significance” (Gabrielle 146). The Woman in Les Blancs is invested with deep meaning; as a

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type and symbol of the culture she represents, the Woman conjures up stereotypical notions of
African-ness—notions that Hansberry proceeds to destroy. Hansberry’s depiction, then, reclaims
the dual figures of the female and the black and returns them to something that is valuable for the
African-American consciousness. She recognizes Africa as a point of collective memory and
identity for America’s black community and seeks to revalue and retake its formative figures.
The Woman’s gender is not the only point of significance. Hansberry’s portrayal of the
Woman as a “native” is just as important. At the end of the Prologue, the Woman raises her spear,
foreshadowing rebellion. She will later offer Tshembe this same spear in an attempt to coax him
into defying colonization. Effiong states,
The spear, an insignia of traditional vigor and militant recalcitrance, further
heightens the native ambience that Hansberry injects into her plot. After
persisting through a phase of self- and cultural denial, and of diplomatically
evading the local insurrection, Tshembe subsequently connects with the spear
even becomes the spear - by finally participating in, and spearheading, the
uprising. An extension of the rhythmic, action-inducing attributes of Les Blancs,
the enchanting Woman underscores the pervasive rhythmic quality that confirms
the Africanisms of the play in spite of its obvious European penchant. She
dances her way into the hearts of her audience and emblematizes Tshembe's
mental state, his inner sentiments and bouts of guilt. (275)
Just as the Woman must convince Tshembe to re-embrace his African identity, rather than
defining himself against it, Hansberry uses the Woman to convince her audience to embrace
legitimate expressions of Africanism, rather than defining whiteness against it. Her depictions of

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the Woman and Tshembe complicate notions of racial and gendered identity. Reappropriating
stereotypes and symbols once marred by a racist and chauvinist colonial history, Hansberry seeks
to rhetorically return these symbols to their African roots.
Ultimately, it is clear that the Woman in Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs is sculpted to
represent African cultural identity; by gathering this complex collective memory into a human
figure, Hansberry succeeds in giving it a voice. That voice is able to communicate with
Tsehembe and, consequently, Hansberry’s audience. As we watch Tshembe soften and change,
Hansberry invites her audience to do the same. She reappropriates the spoiled symbol of the
black female, signaling to the black community that their culture, symbols, and heritage are in
their own hands, rather than those of a white, male, colonialist-dominated history.
Works Cited
Barrios, Olga. “The Intellectual Spear: Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘Les Blancs.’” Atlantis 18.1/2
(1996): 28-36. JSTOR. Web. 25 March 2014.

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Effiong, Philip Uko. "History, myth, and revolt in Lorraine Hansberry's 'Les Blancs.' (drama by
African American woman author)." African American Review 32.2 (1998): 273+.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 February 2014.
Gabrielle, Cindy. "Re-Membering The Clichés: Memory and Stereotypes In Baraka’s The Slave,
Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play and Hansberry’s Les Blancs." English Text Construction 2.1
(2009): 146-156. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 25 March 2014.
Hansberry, Lorraine. "Les Blancs." The Collected Last Plays. Ed. Robert Nemiroff. New York:
Vintage, 1994. 37-128. Print.
McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New
York: Routledge, 1995. Print.