Analysis Of Childhood Dreams By Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is regarded today as one of the most influential Black writers in American history. Pulling inspiration from the genres of blues and jazz, the works of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, and his own life experiences, Hughes’ writing is both classic and innovative (Anon., 1997). Having been an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance, much of his work was centered around the strife and inequality faced by African Americans at the time. Although he explored a wide range of themes in his writing, the concept of the “American Dream” created the foundation for much of his work. As a black man, Hughes knew that he would never experience the proverbial “American Dream” of freedom and

magine America with no rules, government, or any type of structure . This is thanks to Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers for creating , The Declaration Of Independence . Although the Jefferson and the founding fathers anticipated a better country after the creation of the Declaration Of Independence , America has not fully fulfilled these hopeful ideals. However America has come a long way since then , we still have work to do as a nation .

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

The poetry of Langston Hughes, the poet laureate of Harlem, is an effective commentary on the condition of blacks in America during the 20th Century. Hughes places particular emphasis on Harlem, a black area in New York that became a destination of many hopeful blacks in the first half of the 1900ís. In much of Hughes' poetry, a theme that runs throughout is that of a "dream deferred." The recurrence of a"dream deferred" in several Hughes poems paints a clear picture of the disappointment and dismay that blacks in America faced in Harlem. Furthermore, as each poem develops, so does the feeling behind a"dream deferred," growing more serious and even angry with each new stanza.<br><br>To understand Hughes' idea of the"dream deferred," one

‘America’ is a complex, layered idea; one that becomes all the more complex when the deeply embedded construct of race comes into play. As a black man born into a time of overt racial prejudice, Langston Hughes was all too familiar with the double consciousness that came with life as an American minority. This roller coaster is the subject of the vast majority of his literary work and has continued to be a major presence and inspiration for literary work everywhere today. Hughes shows a deep loyalty to the ideals that brought the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights into fruition and, through repeated motifs of the American Dream, seeks to bring about calm in a time of social and political unrest.

The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes and "Hope" by Karen Hesse are three bodies of writing that share many similarities in how they use rhetoric to develop overarching themes. First, "A Dream Deferred" uses personification to get it's theme across. It states "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore—And then run?"

This poem by Langston Hughes is a very complicated. In it the speaker paints a picture of what might happen to someone’s dream if it is postponed too long. This idea is the overall theme of the poem and it is what unifies and connects each line to the poem as a whole. There are also indirect references that this is not only the dream of an individual, but an entire race’s struggle to achieve peace and liberation. This poem consists of a series of answers to the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” All of the lines following this first question are presented as different similes.

This lesson is also brought up in Sandra Cisneros's vignette, A Smart Cookie where a mother’s mistake ruin her opportunities, and in Langston Hughes’s poem, Dreams he explains how important dreams are. Though these stories may have different structures, all three of them relate due to the common issue about the importance of goals and dreams. The importance of goals and dreams is demonstrated through the character’s experiences whether they’ve been good or bad. The beginning of a great future begins with setting goals for ourselves.

According to Becky Bradley in American Cultural History, Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. Growing up, he dealt with some hard times. His parents divorced when he was little and he grew up with neither of his parents. Hughes was raised by his grandmother since his father moved to Mexico after their divorce and his mother moved to Illinois. It was when Hughes was thirteen that he moved out to Lincoln, Illinois to be reunited with his mother. This is where Hughes began writing poetry. However, the family moved again and finally settled in Cleveland, Ohio (Bradley, pars. 1-3).

During the years preceding the publication of “Harlem”, Langston Hughes was subject to an increasing censorship of his work and serious accusations of treason by the U.S government (J. Miller 79). Throughout his entire career as an author and activist, he wrote extensively on racial injustices experienced by his fellow African Americans in the early twentieth century. Though support for racial equality was growing at the time, his criticisms of American society were often used to incriminate him. To avoid the consequences of speaking out directly against the status quo, he began to use more elusive language that could bypass censors (B. Miller 165). In “Harlem” Hughes incorporates figurative

In This poem Langston Hughes displays many metaphors For instance he compares life to broken staircase. He does this to show life is not always so perfect. Something, Hughes uses as metaphor is "and sometimes it's where there ain't going to be dark where there is not light." The, mother uses this to say that life is going to be sad and gloomy but you just have to be strong and keep going. Lastly you should not stop or go backward if you are doing something even if it difficult for instance the mother says "Do not set down on them steps because it's kinder hard" By this, we can infer her life was tough and this dint has much stuff, but she is right it can be hard you just cannot give up.

The epigraphy by Langston Hughes describes how dreams change after they had been put off. When dreams fail, it affects each person differently. The person may just give up on the dream completely, find a new way to reach the dream, change the situation so it may not be the dream but something similar, or it can destroy other dreams too. The Youngers were an African American family who lived on the south side of Chicago and barely scraped by with Walter’s job as a limousine driver. They all eagerly waited for the insurance money, produced after Walter’s dad passed away, to make their dreams come true. But when the check arrived, Walter gave most of the money to Willy Harris, a business partner, who ran off with the money when it was supposed to be invested in a liquor store.

Dreams are hopes that people hope to accomplish in their lifetime. When trying to achieve these goals, people are willing to do anything. But, what happens when a dream is deferred? A dream pushed aside can disappoint a person in the deepest way. It is likely to spread throughout their thoughts and becomes a burden. In the poem “Harlem,” Langston Hughes, through literary devices, introduce a strong theme through a short amount of language Hughes is asking what happens to a dream that is being put off.

After poetry is written, published, and circulated, analysis of the poem must take place. It unveils and discusses the themes, figures of speech, word placement, and flow of the piece, and "A Dream Deferred," is no exception. In Langston Hughes's poem, A Dream Deferred, the theme is that no really knows to dreams if they are not reached, and very realistic figures of speech help convey this idea; the poem can be surprisingly related to Mr. Hughes's life through the subtitle and quotes from Langston himself.

In the opening of the poem the speaker uses a visual image that is also a simile to compare a dream deferred to a raisin. "Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" The simile in the question is comparing a dream deferred to raisin in the sun. Like a raisin, a dream deferred shrivels up