Analysis of "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes Essay

The only major shift that occurs in Dreams Deferred, happens on the last line of the poem. Hughes compares dreams to other things using similes. These similes are not instantaneous, they happen and worsen over time. i.e(Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore). But on the last line, he compares dreams deferring to something that doesn’t need time. An

What happens to a dream, Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? This is the first stanza in A Deferred Dream a poem by Langston Hughes. But what does he mean to "Dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Smile's, imagery and diction were all just used in one simple line of his poem and it has you wondering, what does that mean?

Langston Hughes was the most famous poet from Harlem, writing during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hughes wanted to show the lives of the black community through his poems and the things they faced in America at that time like racism. He would compare the ways African American experience was different from the white Americans. At the time he was writing, slavery was over for sixty years already, but blacks were still treated unequally everyday. African Americans had a dream that was being held back from them, called a deferred dream. What is a dream deferred? Langston Hughes relates his sequence of poems, “Lenox Avenue Mural,” to this question. It is said that, “The “dream deferred” is the dream of African Americans: a dream of freedom, equality,

In Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” he discusses the idea of unfulfilled dreams and their plausible outcomes using symbolism and imagery. He initially describes a “deferred” dream as a sun-dried raisin, depicting the dream originally as a fresh grape that now has dried up and “turned black” (Jemie 63). This idea provides Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun with its basic foundation, for it is a play about a house full of unfulfilled dreams. As the poem goes on, Hughes depicts the idea of a deferred dream as something rotten or gone bad. According to Onwuchekwa Jemie, this may be an allusion to the American Dream and its empty promises (Jemie 64).

It is the idea of contrast that Hughes imposes on the reader. Hughes not only focuses on the negativity aspects of life, but through the negative elements is one able to see the positive outcomes. It is the over all theme of overcoming these obstacles, that captures the audience. Towards the end of the last stanza of the poem, we, the audience, see a complete transformation of the speaker and his view on life. He now comprehends the extensity of his actions and views his emotions as a blinding element from reality. He does not have the need to commit suicide anymore, and now fully accepts the loss and embraces the lament. "Though you may hear me holler, and you may see me cry- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die. Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine! (Conarroe pg 242, 27-33). With the passage, the reader is now aware of the transformation of the speaker.

"Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?" (2-3). suggest that a postponed dream will eventually be forgotten or fizzled out. The image of a raisin stimulates the reader's sight and taste senses. The dream is like a sweet grape which is fresh and new. If you set that grape aside (in hopes of coming back to it later) it most likely will be bitter, dried out, kaput, and

Next he uses the symbol of sugar, or sweetness. This creates the false image that all is well, almost as if this is the way it is meant to be. However, our minds still stick to the festering sore that is under the "Sweet crust." Hughes uses this image as a transition to the only statement in the poem that is not in the form of a question.

   A dream is a hope, a wish, and an aspiration. Young people have dreams about what they want to be when they grow up. Parents have dreams for their children's future. Not all of these dreams come true at the desired moment - these dreams are postponed or "deferred". A deferred dream is put on the "back burner of life"(Jemie 219), and it matures to its full potential, and is waiting when you are "ready to pursue it"(Jemie 219). It is assumed that the deferred event, though later than hoped for, will eventually come true.

In the poem “Harlem” Langston Hues asks the question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” Hughes wonders if a dream deferred shrivels up like a raisin or if it festers like a sore. In other words Hughes speculates about what happens to dreams that haven’t come true after years and years of one searching unsuccessfully for their dreams. At first Hughes wonders about whether the feeling of failure of one’s dreams are similar to a constant nagging feeling of disappointment and inferiority. However I find the last line to be the most important part of the poem.

Dream. Noun. A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep. For Langston Hughes, however, the second definition - a strongly desired goal or purpose - is more fitting. Everyone has goals, desires, and their own missions: Dreams. They don’t come without hardship though, and for an African-American, the barriers only multiply. However, whatever happens, however hard it gets, people should push on

When I read “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, I felt like he knew how it felt to put off a dream for so long. How he described the dream when putting it off for so long, what happens to it and how it hang on to you until you either completely forget about it, or you finally complete the dream. When I read “Hope” by Emily Dickinson, I felt spiritual when she was referring hope as a bird. She best explains hope as a being that is always inside of you, waiting to be let out, to when it’s at the worst moment ever and it’s still there, helping you through, always giving and never wanting. When I read “maggie and milly and molly and may” by e.e.cummings, at first I was very frustrated and sort of confused when reading, because it doesn’t seem

In the poem “Harlem,” by Langston Hughes, he uses a simile “Does it dry up - like a raisin in the sun?" (Line 2-3) Using this simile, he is expressing that dreaming can be good or bad. A raisin is a grape that has been dried out by the sun. Hughes is making known that dreams can suck the life out of a person, mentally drying them out. However, a raisin is not automatically bad. When the grape is dried out by the sun it turns the grape into a raisin, a sweet and delightful fruit which can furnish life when eaten. A dream can be just like a raisin. A person may feed off the idea of the dream in order to strive and strive to achieve the dream.

The meaning of, "A Dream Deferred," is that no one really knows what happens to dreams that are not fulfilled. The poem starts with the line, "What happens to a dream deferred?" and this plainly asks what happens to dreams that have not been paid attention to. The next line in the poem is, "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run?" meaning does a dream simply wither away until it is no longer prevalent, or does it sit and stew until it becomes unbearable enough that it is fulfilled out of convenience. The following stanza is, "Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet." This means that dreams could possibly be attainable, but people put them on the figurative back burner making them "rot" and "smell" like a constant reminder. A scholarly review written by Marie Rose Napierkowski proves my point by saying, "With the smell of rotten meat, Hughes suggests that dreams deferred will pester one

“What happens to a dream deferred?” Langston Hughes provokes in the first line of his poem “Harlem,”. Since the dawn of time, people have had dreams, ambitions, and goals on how they want to live their lives. Human beings have always wondered what their purpose is, and how they should fulfill it. I, like those before me, am no different in that sense. I am a girl that has the heart of a child and has dreams that soar beyond the conceivable stars. Ever since I was young, I allowed myself to dream as high as I could, and I believed that if I set my mind to a task I could complete it. Now I am older and have more strength alongside the ambition to chase these goals until I physically cannot go on. However, I have found throughout my teenage years that while your brain may be set on one path, life has a tendency to throw obstacles at you that may get in the way of the plans you had for yourself. Sometimes there will be circumstances in life that you cannot avoid or alter, as it is out of your control. In Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” the persona speaks of dreams that were deferred, and I can relate to this concept strongly as I have had to put a dream of my own on hold in the past.

Dreams, whether completely bizarre ones that leave you awakened in the early morning hours and utterly confused, or wistful daydreams that drift into your head during a particularly uneventful math class, or simply a scene you envision yourself starring in ten years down the line, are all affected more or less by goals you have for yourself or your path in life. However, humans are seasons, shedding their dreams with the appearance of any “wall,” just as trees cast off their leaves. As one ages, and obstacles begin to clutter the eagerness and determination of a young mind, one is likely to give up on or alter their aspirations rather than face the walls that close them off from achieving their dreams. Langston Hughes’s poem, “As I Grew Older,” illustrates just that-- the struggle that the he has had while attempting to achieve his childhood dreams due to obstacles that clutter his path to success.