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A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansburry And Martin Luther King Jr.

810 Words4 Pages

Lorraine Hansburry and Martin Luther King Junior were both prominent African American figures who were inspired by Langston Hughes. Hansberry was the first African American woman to have their show produced on Broadway. She was also a playwright, and a racial injustice and women's rights activist. King was a minister and civil rights activist who fought for African Americans to have equal rights. Hughes was a poet, playwright, social activist, and a novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. Both, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansburry and I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Junior depended on Langston Hughes Harlem (Dream Deferred) because all of the texts have a theme of dreams and more specifically, dreams that have not come true.
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Both use the theme of dreams not coming true and describe what that means to them. Hughes says “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / Like a raisin in the sun?” to describe what happens when a dream doesn’t come true. Lorraine wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun to describe how dreams must be fought for to come true. She writes about an African American family and each member has a different dream. One of the family members, Walter, has a dream of owning a business. “this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured the initial investment on the place be 'bout thirty thousand, see. That be ten thousand each. Course, there's a couple of hundred you got to pay so's you don't spend your life just waiting for them clowns to let your license get approved”. This quote from Walter shows him detailing what his plan and dream is for creating his business. Later Walter and his mother say “ ‘Son, I gave you sixty-live hundred dollars. Is it gone?’ ‘… Mama , . , I never . . . went to the bank at all …’ ‘You mean . . . your sister's school money . . . you used that too ... Walter? . . .’ ‘Yessss! All of it ... It's all gone . . .’ ” This dialogue details just how Walter’s dream has been deferred. Both authors chose to describe what it

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