Dream Deferred Langston Hughes

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

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).

     People always listen to music, watch movies or plays, and even read poetry without once even thinking what is could be that helps and artist eventually create a masterpiece. Often times, it is assumed that artists just have a “gift”, and people just do not consider the circumstances and situations that gradually mold a dormant idea into a polished reality. This seems to be the case with nearly every famous actor, writer, painter, or musician; including the ever-famous Langston Hughes.

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was very small, and his father (who found American racism made his desires to be a lawyer impossible) left the family and emigrated to Mexico. Hughes' mother moved with her child to Lawrence, Kansas, so she and he could live with his grandmother, Mary Langston.

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 .

The poem A Dream Deferred can be best explained as thinking of what can happen to a dream. The author, Langston Hughes, wonders what happens to a dream that is not pursued. He asks, “Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?” That answers the question- why did Lorraine Hansberry pick the title of her award winning novel, A Raisin in the Sun. She chose this name because of the dreams the characters in her play have. Walter Lee Younger, one of the main protagonists, has a dream to buy a spot in a liquor store as a partner by using the money he received after his father, Walter Young, died. Walter Lee goes against his mother's desires and spends all the money, instead of giving half to his sister for her schooling. The money is then stolen by his business partner (Hansberry 128). Here, we see Walter Lee’s dream being crushed just like in the poem, when the author asks, “does it explode?” (Hughes).

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.

Langston Hughes uses a unique style, language, and diction to portray his point about dreams. “Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?”(2-3) This symbolizes a hardening, from a grape to a raisin. If a dream is destroyed it hardens the heart. It becomes useless just the like the dried up raisin. Hughes also suggests that maybe unrealized dreams are a "heavy load" which symbolizes a burden, something to heavy to bear, something that weighs a person down always. This poem is like the American Dream, if you do not pursue your dream right away it may slip away from you and eventually it will be gone. The American Dream can be fulfilled through hard word work and passion, it will not come easy. Everyone has the opportunity to grasp the chance to become successful through dreams and goals. Langston Hughes realized the importance of dreams and having those dreams torn apart. His poem, "Dream Deferred", uses strong images to create a picture of a negative and destructive outcome for a dreamer left unable to dream. “Nothing can stop a man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude”, Thomas Jefferson.

The poem changes moods with the lines"I've seen them come dark/ out of Penn Station - / but the trains are late. / The gates are open - / Yet there're bars / at each gate." The people have not found what they expected and hoped for in Harlem. These last lines help the reader to understand the feelings that accompanied the harsh reality of Harlem. The addition of the blunt question,"What happens / to a dream deferred?" maintains this understanding: this is the"dream deferred," and this is what the people were experiencing. The question is harsh and unyielding, and its position in the poem creates a feeling of seriousness. Another Hughes poem,"Same in Blues," attempts to establish further the idea of a"dream deferred," incorporating a type of dialogue between characters to explain the components of a"dream deferred," adding an element of anger to the end. The first stanza has a woman telling her man that she has to keep moving, followed by the lines,"There's a certain / amount of traveling / in a dream deferred." This method continues through four stanzas, where peopl converse, and a new component is introduced:"a certain amount of nothing,""a certain amount of impotence." The last component the poem introduces is the most effective:"There's liable / to be confusion / in a dream deferred." The poem continues to say that"there's liable to be confusion / when a dream

In Langston Hughes’ poem, the author gives us vivid examples of how dreams get lost in the weariness of everyday life. The author uses words like dry, fester, rot, and stink, to give us a picture of how something that was originally intended for good, could end up in defeat. Throughout the play, I was able to feel how each character seemed to have their dreams that fell apart as the story went on. I believe the central theme of the play has everything to do with the pain each character goes thru after losing control of the plans they had in mind. I will attempt to break down each character’s dream and how they each fell apart as the play went on.

It gives us an example of the resentment that is growing. People are getting more inflamed emotionally, just like the wound gets worse if not treated. It draws a clear parallel between people's emotions and the images of the sore. Just as an untreated sore will not heal, but get more infected, a deferred dream will not go away, but become more intense. A wound that gets worse will eventually start to smell bad. Hughes compares this to rotten meat. "Does it stink like rotten meat?" This image creates the idea that unrealized dreams will bring out the worst in men. It also means that for some the realization of their dreams will become less attractive.

During the time period of this poem being published, America was still segregated and African Americans were still fighting to be seen as equal. Hughes starts off the poem with a question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” which questions what happens when you put off your dreams (172). Although the speaker does not refer to what they dream of in the poem, is clear that they are talking about what a dream feels like when you are limited in life. This poem helps show how limited African Americans were when trying to achieve their dreams and that the oppressed environment that they lived in. The dreams that they hoped to one day achieve were never going to be able to be reached because of how they were perceived in society. However, African Americans tried to achieve their dreams and find their place in the society that they lived in, but some still managed to find their dreams to “fester like a sore,” (172). Hughes writes this poem to help depict the visions, ambitions, and frustrations that African Americans felt when trying to make their place in the world. In this poem, a play is taken from one of the lines in the poem that refers to an African American family’s dreams drying up, “like a raisin in the sun,” (172). During these times of struggle, African Americans began to continue to be

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

Langston Hughes's poem "Dream Deferred" is basically about what happens to dreams when they are put on hold. Hughes probably intended for the poem to focus on the dreams of African-American in particular. However, it is just as easy to read the poem as being about dreams in general and what happens when people postpone making them come true. What I got from the poem was that the longer you put your dreams on hold, the more the dreams will change and the less likely they will come true.