Quotes To A Dream In Poe's Poem By Langston Hughes

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 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).

The short but inspirational poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes addresses what happens to aspirations that are postponed or lost. The brief, mind provoking questions posed throughout the poem allow the readers to reflect--on the effects of delaying our dreams. In addition, the questions give indications about Hughes' views on deferred dreams.

What does happen to a dream deferred? Immediately, Langston Hughes allows the reader to think of dreams of his or her own in Harlem. Maybe they wish they were a doctor, lawyer, poet, or professional athlete. “What if I had just tried that much harder?” or “What if I would have been more focused?” These are ways that Hughes is known for evoking participation from his reader. As seen in Harlem, the repeated question asking must elicit response from the reader. Without reading line two, the reader is already thinking about his or her dream deferred. What would that have dream

People often feel that it is impossible to fulfill their dreams. As shown in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the pressure of achieving goals when faced with economic conflict makes dreams even harder to reach. If dreams aren't fulfilled one often falls under a melancholy state; or state of depression. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes both portray, by using imagery, that if a person delays his dreams, the chances of his vision becoming a reality are greatly reduced.

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.

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.

In order to understand Hughes' idea of the "dream deferred," one must have a working knowledge of the history of Harlem. It was first intended to be the home of an upper class white community, many fancy brownstones attracted wealthy whites. Between 1906 and 1910, when whites were forcing blacks out of their own homes and neighborhoods in uptown Manhattan, the blacks began to move into Harlem to create their communities again. Due to absurd racial fears, the whites in the area began to move out. Between 1910 and the early 1940's, more blacks began flooding into the area for a safe harbor from all over the world, fleeing from the racial intolerance of the South and the economic problems of the Caribbean and Latin America. At this point, Harlem became an entirely black area where comfort was created for all of them. Although it seemed to be

Hughes’ intellectual use of structure through tone, similes, and spacing is what makes “Harlem” one for the ages. “What happens to a dream deferred?” (Hughes 236) Hughes begins this poem with a proactive yet innocuous question about dreams. It forces the reader to go outside the poem and contemplate what they would do without hope.

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.

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.

In his 1951 poem, the title alone, “Harlem (Dream Deferred) makes the reader immediately conscious of the speaker’s dismissal of ownership.The piece examines, upon deferral, what happens to a dream - “Does it dry up / like a raisin the sun?”

I also felt a little curious as to what Mr. Hughes could have been facing in his own life that would spark the words. My curiosity ultimately inspired me to head out to the library to get the book “Montage of a Dream Deferred” so that I could get a better feel as to what Mr. Hughes was trying to help his readers feel.