Every story, poem, play, and any piece of literature has at least one of many literary devices in common. Theme remains a constant part of every literary artwork. Modernism literature has themes that touch The Great Depression, the Harlem Renaissance, and post-World War 1 realism. Modernism began in 1915 right after the first World War; writers became jaded and bitter with experience. These themes are expressed in “A Dream Deferred’’ by Langston Hughes, “A Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway, and “On a Play Twice Seen” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes discusses what happens to dreams and life goals if they are postponed or pushed back. Hughes poetry theme asks the reader what happens when their dreams die? “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes line 3). This theme and the author connect to modernist writing because Langston Hughes is part of the Harlem Renaissance. It also contains a bitter tone much like most modernism: “Does it stink like rotten meat?” (Hughes line 6). The poem conveys to its audience that life goes on even while old dreams are pushed away, regardless of the situation. A similar sad tone
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Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator describes a play that they have seen so many times that it has become uninteresting and predictable. This theme of decayed of interest is also a sign of depression. The poem talks about the play as if the narrator is actually describing life: “there was an idle day of ours, when happy endings didn’t bore our unfermented souls” (Fitzgerald lines 3-5). This means there was once a time where the narrator did not feel so uninterested in happy endings. The experience has now worn off after so much monotony. “I watch alone—and chattering’s of course spoil the one scene which somehow did have charms” (Fitzgerald lines 10 & 11). Even after all the reprise the last good part becomes spoiled by yet another experience, perpetuating the current boredom into future
The art, literature, and poetry of the early 20th century called for a disruption of social values. Modernism became the vague term to describe the shift. The characteristics of the term Modernism, all seek to free the restricted human spirit. It had no trust in the moral conventions and codes of the past. One of the examples of modernism, that breaks the conventions and traditions of literature prior to Modernism, is Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”. The short story uses plot, symbolism, setting, dialogue, and a new style of writing to allow human spirit to experiment with meaning and interpretation.
In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.
"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go." Some people think that you should just go through life not taking chances, or taking risks. This is another example of Langston and his feeling to be free. "I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread." When he says he doesn’t need his freedom when he’s dead, this is saying that you should make the best of the freedom you have now, while you are still alive."What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?" (Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951) When you have a dream and you don’t go after it then what happens to it? “Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.” (Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951) Persevere, keep trying to accomplish your goals in life. His metaphor to life and a broken winged bird is saying that when you don’t grasp onto your dreams, and make them come true, then you can’t achieve your full capability."The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it." (The Big Sea,1940) If you do want to effectuate your goals then don’t hold off on them, do them so you can finish them and maybe
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.
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).
Langston Hughes was a successful African-American poet of the Harlem renaissance in the 20th century. Hughes' had a simple and cultured writing style. "Harlem" is filled with rhythm, jazz, blues, imagery, and evokes vivid images within the mind. The poem focuses on what could happen to deferred dreams. Hughes' aim is to make it clear that if you postpone your dreams you might not get another chance to attain it--so take those dreams and run. Each question associates with negative effects of deferred dreams. The imagery from the poem causes the reader to be pulled in by the writer's words.
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).
The birth of the modernist movement in American literature was the result of the post-World War I social breakdown. Writers adopted a disjointed fragmented style of writing that rebelled against traditional literature. One such writer is William Faulkner, whose individual style is characterized by his use of “stream of consciousness” and writing from multiple points of view.
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.
Authors wanted to revolutionize arts and audience worldwide. This was done by the creation of tools that helped excel the “American Dream”. Some of the major authors in this time included T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein (Modernism). There are two different groupings of modernism, which are modernism and post modernism. In the beginning, “early modernists used elements of experimentation, freedom, radicalism, and utopianism” (Modernism). After the war, “post-modernists, however, rebelled against many modernist elements and instead depicted disillusionment and elements of dystopian ideas—dehumanized and fearful lives” (Modernism). Many different historical aspects influenced the upcoming of the modernist movement such as publications of scientific theories, technological inventions that globalized society, Sigmund Freud’s change in the discipline of psychology, new concepts of ethics, morality, and ideals, and artistic movements (Modernism).
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
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
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
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.