preview

Struggling Dreams Essay

Decent Essays

Several poems attempt to address social and political issues. In several of Langston Hughes’s poems, he expresses sociopolitical protests. He portrayed people whose lives were impacted by racism and sexual conflicts, he wrote about southern violence, Harlem street life, poverty, prejudice, hunger, hopelessness. Hughes’s poem a “Dream Deferred” was published in 1951. The poem speculated about the consequences of white’s society’s withholding of equal opportunity. The title of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raison in the Sun was taken directly from Hughes’s poem. Hansberry’s parents were intellectuals and activists, and her father won an antisegregation case before the Illinois Supreme Court, upon which the …show more content…

She is very adamant about getting married. She doesn’t want to get serious with George because he thinks it’s absurd that she is going to school for medicine.
A dream deferred is a dream that is put off. The poem reflects the possibilities of what happens to a dream deferred. Lena’s family dreams were deferred. Lena’s dream was to move to a house with a back yard for her grandson to play in- a dream for the future. Earlier on, she and her husband had a dream of moving out of the apartment, but it never happened. She has good old values of putting your family first, respecting your mother and father, and respecting the Lord. When she saw her falling starting to fall apart, she took the insurance money to secure a home in a mew neighborhood. She took the chance of living in a white neighborhood, after reports showed that other African Americans were harassed and bombed for “invading”. Lena hoped to save her family. Also, during a conversation with Beneatha, she slaps Beneatha for disrespecting the lord. She makes Beneatha repeat “In my mother’s house there is still God”. Lena shows further the importance of her family by putting aside her own values to give her son money for a liquor store she thinks is corrupt.
Walter, on the other hand, valued his pride and money for most of the play. He insists on being the head of the family and thrives on the acceptance of him

Get Access