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Similes In Harlem By Langston Hughes

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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. In line 3, the speaker compares deferred dreams to “a raisin in the sun” (3). When a dream is put on hold, it gets its life sucked away; similar to a grape that is left in the sun for too long that it turns into a raisin. The image of the dried raisin contrasts with

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