Dreams are aspirations that people hope to achieve in their lifetime. They are a motive that drives lives to accomplish goals. When trying to achieve these goals, people can do anything. However, what happens when a dream is deferred? A dream cast aside can frustrate a person in the deepest way. It tends to permeate their thoughts and becomes an unshakable burden. In the poem “Harlem,” Langston Hughes, through literary technique, raises strong themes through a short amount of language.
The poem begins with a question: "What happens to a dream deferred?” The speaker of the poem at this point is unnamed. By not knowing the speaker, the question is strengthened, as the deferred dream is the dreams and desires of all the people within the African American community. The form of the question, being a single-line stanza, helps raise silence after the question, allowing the readers to open their minds.
To answer the initial question, the speaker poses six additional questions. The six questions that are asked also have indefinite answers, but the speaker uses imagery to suggest the impression of the dream deferred. These images are the raisins, festered sores, rotten meat, sweet syrup and explosion. Along with these objects being described with a state of decay, the dream is portrayed similarly. The words, such as "drying up," "fester," "stink," and "sags" summarize the sour and sad tone of the dream. These images and tones represent the speaker's viewpoint of the deferred dream and Harlem.
The first answer of the initial question "What happens to a dream deferred" is another question: "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” When comparing the raisin's dried and wrinkled texture to a grape's juicy and smooth texture, it creates a...
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...d despair. This, for any community, is a great burden to hold.
In the last line of the poem, the speaker uses a word of destruction -- "explode.” The choice of diction does not portray the dream in the usual sense as paradises. The speaker claims the dream that the community experiences will eventually destroy the community of Harlem. The dream only leaves a sense of bitterness and desperation just as the impression the speaker has on Harlem. The form of this destructive line also symbolizes the status of the questions that were previously stated: when Harlem cannot heal its sores and wounds, it will explode all at once through means of riots and protests. Furthermore, the usage of italics in the last line can emphasis the severity of a postponed dream, in this case of the African American community. This final line increases the intensity of the situation.
If one thinks about it, a raisin was once a grape. Grapes are full of juice while a raisin is dry. Hughes uses a raisin to compare a dream deferred because just like a raisin was once a grape a dream deferred was a dream but now one must wait. Hughes says, “Or fester like a sore---/ And then run?” (4-5).
The chasing of a mirage is a futile quest where an individual chases an imaginary image that he or she wants to capture. The goal of this impossible quest is in sight, but it is unattainable. Even with the knowledge that failure is inevitable, people still dream of catching a mirage. There is a fine line that separates those who are oblivious to this fact, and to those who are aware and accept this knowledge. The people who are oblivious represent those who are ignorant of the fact that their dream will be deferred. This denial is the core of the concept used in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The perception of the American Dream is one that is highly subjective, but every individual dream ends in its own deferment.
The reason I say African American’s dreams is because the author published this poem in 1951, the time period where there was much racism and civil rights violations against African Americans. Another reason is that the author is an African American himself. Finally, the biggest reason is that the author named the poem “Harlem.” Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American cultural and business center. It was associated for much of the twentieth century with black culture, crime and poverty. It is the capital of African-American life in the United States. The author named this poem “Harlem” because he was addressing mainly the black community. Still, the poem’s message is very clear: if one postpones his/her dream(s) it can have a damaging affects.
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:
Hughes, a.k.a. Langston, a.k.a. “Harlem [Dream Deferred]” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer.
The American Dream is an aspiration that millions of people reach for in their lifetimes. The idea that living in America will assure happiness and success is a reason why many people migrate to this country. In actuality, the many people searching for it may not fulfill this dream lifestyle that America hypothetically offers. Like in the poem Harlem, by Langston Hughes, and the songs “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “Racing in the Street” by Bruce Springsteen, the main characters are battling with the idea of the American Dream and the life that it offers. Harlem describes what happens when you put a dream off and this dream may as well be the American Dream. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” describes what it feels like to lose the life the
Walter Younger is a dreamer. He dreams of owning his own business. When that dream falls apart, Walter's dream can be compared to Langston Hughes's poem "A Dream Deferred." according to arthur, “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” Langston Hughes. This quote refers to Walter dream. Like the Raisin in the Sun his dream did dry up. This shows that not all dreams come true. Walter loses all of his mama insurance money and Walter is left with a dried up dream. His deferred dream is like a sore that festers and runs from the infection. Walter's dream can be compared to a sore that festers and runs. He explode from the disappointment of his broken dreams. He drinks heavily and comes home to get verbally
What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore-And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode?While Langhston Hughes authors this poem, A Dream Deferred, it can easily be interpreted as Toni Morrison's description of Nel and her life of sorrow and dissatisfaction. Sula and Nel, the protagonists in Toni Morrison's Sula, are each the only daughters of mothers whose distance leaves the young girls with dreams to erase this solitude and loneliness. There is no question that Sula alleviates this aloneness with a lascivious and experimental life, "I'm going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world"(143). Nel, however, for the most part, fails terribly at realizing her dreams and experiencing a happy existence.
Then after reading it another time and looking into more about the background of the author and poem, I see that it is has a bigger picture of the issue Gwendolyn Brooks was trying to write about, which was that during this time period many African Americans were dropping out of school. Just a few years before Brooks wrote this poem, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, that it was unconstitutional to segregate schools. However, desegregating the schools was a prolonged process, and many African Americans became frustrated. So, these students who would drop out, like the ones in the poem, felt like they had no future anymore and now chose to follow a different lifestyle. Gwendolyn Brooks does a great job as to explaining
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)." Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River. Prentice, 2002. 534.
Langston Hughes' poem begins with a deceptively innocent question: "What happens to a dream deferred?" (Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun 1). From the opening line, the reader is left to contemplate an infinite number of possible outcomes, among them if it partially dies, if it continues to live into the next generation, if it matters what kind of dream it is, and many others. And then, suddenly, he adds to it to further focus the question and thusly to compound and raise its complexity. He asks, "Does it dry up / Like a raisin in the sun?" (Hansberry 2-3). Now, whereas the reader could initially answer the first question in whichever way he wished, he now finds him...
Langston Hughes’s poem, Harlem, inspired the title of A Raisin in The Sun for it’s close relation with the theme of dreams. His poem can also connect back with Disney’s quote; Disney states that anyone’s dream can come true if pursued, while Hughes talks about what happens when dreams aren’t pursued. He discusses many different things that can happen when dreams are deferred. Many times when they aren’t chased, dreams have a negative impact on that person. Harlem is definitely a negative poem, conveyed through phrases like rotten, crust, sag, and fester - all unpleasant words. The poem’s pace and placement of each guess as to what happens of a dream deferred is important to the message of the poem. In the beginning, Hughes talks about processes that are slower, like “...dry[ing] up like a raisin in the sun” (2-3) and “crust[ing] and syrup[ing] over -- like a sugary sweet”(7-8). At the end of the poem, the author talks wonders “...does it just explode?” (11), something that happens much quicker than all his other guesses. I think the reason for his choice of pace is because that’s often the path that a dream deferred takes; a slow process, the dream slowly fades away until, BOOM, there isn’t a dream left i...
the life of Harlem and knew that equality and freedom was definitely not present. The poem portrays
Tragedy is an ever present part of life, whether it be illness, inability, death or anything else, it takes its toll on everyone. A very common tragedy found in literature and daily life is the loss of dreams, in Langston Hughes’s poem “A Dream Deferred” Hughes poses the question of what truly happens to a deferred dream: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up… Or fester like a sore… Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over...Or does it explode?” The outcome of lost dreams differs for each individual and their attitude. This is seen throughout America and also in The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner and The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
Otherwise, they might die miserably. In contrast, there are no assertive sentences in Hughes’ poem. “Harlem” is built on six questions, and these questions make the readers feel inconclusive. Hughes seems to believe that when people face uncertainties in their lives, they will concurrently feel frustration. Therefore, the questions make the readers gain a sense of the poet’s indefinite attitude of racial oppression; Hughes also uses many negative words, such as “fester”, “sore” and “stink” to convey his frustrated tone. Further, in the third stanzas, “Maybe it just sags like a heavy load”, unlike the other lines in the poem, is not a question; it reflects the poet’s hopelessness because he no longer questions, he is expressing a possibility. However, there is also a turning point in the last line, “Or does it explode?” Here, the tone changes from frustrated to threatened. This shows a dangerous and destructive action that hopeless people might take to defend themselves while living in constant fear of. During the civil right movement, blacks did not have rights as the whites