Dream Deferred Langston Hughes

In our journey through life, we all have certain expectations of how we would like our lives to be. All of us strive to reach a certain level of self-actulization and acceptance. It could thus be said that all of us live a dream. Some of these individual dreams inevitably become the collective dream of many people. In "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)", Langston Hughes makes use of symbolism as well as powerful sensory imagery to show us the emotions that he and his people go through in their quest for freedom and equality. By using questions he builds the poem towards an exciting climax.

The speaker opens the poem by questioning, "What happens to a dream deferred?" (1). This single line instantly gives the reader an idea of what the poem is about. The first question produces curiosity in the reader--makes the reader want to find the answer to the question.

Another major issue in society during the Harlem Renaissance era that Langston Hughes (among the other poets) addressed was the issue of the lack of opportunity provided to those of color and to those who were not privileged in the class system. A second infamous poem by Hughes addresses such an issue perfectly. His poem titled “Let America Be America Again” is once again going to challenge and criticize society and its values by attacking the concept of the American Dream, in which he will claim that the American Dream is out of reach for those who are not white and those are not privileged. The stanza that represents Hughes’s message perfectly is that of “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—let it be that great strong land of love… Where

Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. One of his most prominent work was a poem was a poem called Harlem. The speaker starts off in this poem by asking what happens to a dream deferred and tries to come up with possible answers. He wonders if dreams dried up like a raisin in the sun, ooze like a wound and then run, smell like rotten mean or develop a sugary crust. Hughes wrote this poem to address the limitations of the American Dream for African Americans. During the 1950s, when this poem was written in, America was racially segregate and African Americans had a legacy of slavery on their backs that rendered them a lower class. Hughes wrote this poem three years before the case Brown vs. Board of Education that declared states to establish separate public schools for

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem” began with the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” This allows us as readers to wonder what he may be trying to say, and so then at lines 6-11, he answers with a series of rhetorical questions as, “Does it stink like rotten meat? / Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? / Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load. /

During the Harlem Renaissance, many African Americans were giving up on their dreams of equality due to rejection. However, Langston Hughes poem A Dream Deferred questions what happens to a dream that is deferred. In the poem, Hughes expresses his anxiety over his deferred dreams. The poet mentions how his dreams perished in six theoretical ways, all which are harmful to the dreamer. Langston Hughes used figurative language to explain how a neglected dream affects the

“Dreams” and “Dreams Deferred” were written by African American poet Langston Hughes in a period in time when racism and racial segregation were major problems in American society, and while both poems discuss dreams in a similar way, there are different perspectives that can be observed when interpreting them. While they portray the significance and decay of our dreams, an underlying message or theme could possibly be the meaninglessness of a life without dreams, and that when they get postponed, or “deferred,” they start deteriorating and eventually die. When observing the historical context in which the poems were written, however, one could argue that Hughes is specifically talking about the struggles African Americans were going through, having their dreams crushed by society and the justice system of the United States with segregation laws and racism.

One of the many proceedings that makes the title significant is the relation to Hughes poem Harlem. Harlem is a poem questioning what happens to a dream that does not come true. As we read the poem we find that all of the suggestions are of the dreams wasting away, except the last saying that the dream explodes, which is much more active and meaningful. “Langston Hughes was educated on the streets of Harlem listening to the hopeless and marginalised sing the blues. Many of his poems were written to the rhythm of blues music. Hughes listened and learned from the streets” (Price, 5). Harlem was written during the times of the Harlem Renaissance, which means Hughes was addressing the problem of African Americans not obtaining the same rights as white

In the poem “Harlem [2]” written by Langston Hughes, the poet uses the image, “or maybe it just sags, like a heavy load,” to portray the miserable feeling of a dream being deferred. By using the imagery, “or maybe it just sags, like a heavy load,” it introduces the idea of how depressing and impossible it is when a dream is put aside Line (8,9). The poet’s example of imagery portrays how hard it is to complete an aspiration that has been forgotten after years of holding back on a dream. Using the word “sags,” the poet is able to introduce to the reader how lifeless, and miserable having to give up on a dream, or wish of theirs. Just like a pile of very heavy weights on your shoulders making it impossible to do anything with their body, a dream deferred puts a lot of pressure on that person which puts a pause to enjoying their own life.

Langston Hughes’s “Harlem” questions what would happen if one doesn’t fulfill one’s dreams. Hughes is an African American who wrote this poem in 1951. During this time, the African Americans didn’t have many rights so “Harlem” could have been written to show the experiences and thoughts that the African Americans had at the time. Hughes uses similes to appeal to the senses of taste, smell, and touch which creates a vivid image of what deferred dreams would “look” or be like.

Langston Hughes is an exceptional writer who uses various techniques to fabricate excellent pieces of literature. His proficiency in writing can be witnessed in the poem ‘Harlem’ where he talks about the dreams of a neighborhood. Hughes utilizes short phrases and metaphors to explain the leftovers of dreams.

Analysis of Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes A dream deferred is a poem by the famous poet known as Langston Hues. The poet wrote this poem during the period of Harlem Renaissance in 1951. During this period, most of artists, actors and celebrities rose and pledged their lives to fight for the rights of the African American. This period was the time that most artists were able to reveal and share their ideologies without facing much aggression from the white American.

The literary elements used in “Harlem” help Langston Hughes effectively communicate the overall theme of dreams and its relation to the African American experience. The poem “Harlem” is about a deferred dream and what happens to

Derissa Crawford Professor Kobeleva English 1102 6 March 2015 To Dream or Not To Dream Life in the early 20th century was quite the very different for African Americans in America compared to now. It was a time when African Americans did not have all the same opportunities. In the early 20th century Africans Americans could either believe in a dream or just accept life as it was. “Dreams” and “Harlem” by Langston Hughes are two poem’s that focus on dreams; however, the poems both take two different take towards dreams, the poem “Dreams” is conveying that life is hard without dreams, while “Harlem” is questioning what happens when a person’s dreams are postponed.

One of Hughes most famous poems, “Harlem(Dream Deferred)” had a great impact by posing lots of questioning. According to critic Tom Hanson, this poem is just that simple because it gives a bunch of undesirable answers to the same question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” Hanson also says how this poem refers almost completely to an unsolved problem (Hanson, Harlem). The poem gives four rather unpleasant interrogatives and one declarative answer followed by the sixth possibility, “Or does it explode?” which is supposed to be a question to make a reader really think. There are several ways to interpret the meaning of the final line, and the most sensible explanation is, the African American community is “deferring dreams” and in doing so their dreams explode in terms of the chance to act is gone. Some may say Hughes presented an unattractive view