A Raisin In The Sun And I Have A Dream Analysis

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963 and it became one of the most iconic speeches to go down in history. In front of thousands, he spoke of freedom and hope that one day people wouldn’t be treated differently because of the color of their skin. This theme coincides with the the theme in the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry,. The play also involves discrimination and hope, but focused more on the importance and struggles of family. A family of five received a welfare check of ten thousand dollars, but couldn’t quite make a decision on what to do with it to make everyone happy. They wanted to spend it on a new home of their own and start anew, but Walter Lee wanted to invest in a liquor store. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech and A Raisin in the sun are both analogous, as they both share themes of family, equality and discrimination, and hope. Family is the main theme in A Raisin in the Sun. At the beginning of the …show more content…
Family was a main focus for the play and King’s speech slightly touched on the subject. Both play and speech showed the struggles of living in a society where problems with discrimination and equality are very prominent. Faith and hope for the future proved to be a major theme in both, but King’s speech was driven by hope to a greater extent. For the fact that a lot of people in the past were cruel to those with a different color of skin, people had to step up to take matters into their own hands and try to right the wrongs. Lorraine Hansberry may not have made as much of an impact as Martin Luther King Jr. did, but she did somewhat point out in her play how wrong discrimination is. Now, more than fifty years later, there is still some elements of discrimination and racial profiling, but as time goes on it may one day be depleted