What are the themes in "MASTER HAROLD"...and the Boys?
Race and equality are themes in the play. Hally and Sam appear at first to be much closer than servant and master. In fact, Sam is much more of a father figure to young Hally than Hally's actual father. But there are moments in the play that highlight Sam's social inequality because of his race. One of the more subtle instances is discovered when Sam reveals why he could not stay and help Hally fly the kite. The park was a whites-only park. But the big racial inequality of the play occurs when Hally angrily demands that Sam now call him "Master Harold." Hally basically asserts his supposed superiority over Sam based on nothing more than race. It's a definitive moment in the play and forever destroys the relationship that they once had.
Another theme is father and son relationships. I touched on this in the previous paragraph. Hally's...
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real father is a deadbeat dad. Hally knows it. It's why he asks his mom to come home from the hospital without his dad. It's why he's so angry after he finds out that his dad will actually be coming home that night. It's clear to the audience that Sam is much more of a father to Hally than anybody else. He listens to Hally, offers him advice, helps with his homework, and even lightly teases him when appropriate.
What are three themes in "MASTER HAROLD" ... and the Boys and how do they affect the characters?
Readers are often asked to analyze themes or characters of a piece, and this question isn't much different. The advantage to this question is that it explicitly tells you to analyze themes and explore characters as you do so. This is usually a fairly simple thing to do, because characters often illustrate themes and themes are explored through characters
"MASTER HAROLD" ... and the Boys is a great play to do this kind of analysis for, because the character list is very short. The entire play is three people, as we never see Hally's dad or mom; however, we do learn a great deal about Hally's relationship with his mom and dad. The play explores themes dealing with family dynamics.
Within the family dynamics, the play explores abuse. It becomes quite clear that Hally's dad is a terrible drunk of a father. Hally finds it great that his dad is currently out of the picture, and Hally is quite upset when he learns that his dad will be coming home. Audiences initially sympathize with Hally, because of his abusive father; however, we come to see that Hally is just as abusive toward his mom. By the end of the play, Hally is even abusive to Sam, who we can see is essentially Hally's surrogate father.
The play also explores themes that revolve around racism. Hally is white, and Sam and Willie are Black servants. Audiences learn about societal racism when Sam explains why he couldn't go with Hally to certain places, and we hope and wish that Hally hasn't learned his society's racist attitudes. We wish this because we see the great relationship that he has with Sam. Unfortunately, as Hally's anger toward his father's return grows, audiences see Hally is just as racist as the greater society at large.
HALLY: He's a white man and that's good enough for you.
SAM: I'll try to forget you said that.