Langston Hughes Harlem

Langston Hughes’ poem “ Harlem” the speaker gives an idea of what Harlem was in the past and what people of that community dream it to be. The poem is structured by a distinct question in the first stanza: what happens when dreams are delayed. Followed by simpler questioning thoughts in the second stanza: drying up like a raisin in the sun or smelling like rotten meat. The mood from the third stanza feels like the speaker has found their answer: sagging like a heavy load. But in the fourth stanza there is uncertainty again: does it explode? Dreams cause frustration because they give hope abut don’t always come true. Hughes uses poetic language to express his thoughts his poem. First Hughes titles his poem Harlem, this means that the city of Harlem is important to him if he chose it as a topic to write his poem about it. When looking for the narrator of this poem a person from Harlem comes to mind. The people of Harlem love their city, but if it were going through hard times they would want it to become better and the best it can be. Hope to make Harlem a better place culturally and a better place for the community is all part of their dream. But

The simile of a raisin drying up in the sun in line two and three is referring the weight on the people’s mind in the community if the dream were to not come true, the dissatisfaction. The last two stanzas are a metaphor because they are comparing the communities dream to something that could blow up. People in the community have so much hope for this dream that it blows up when work is not done to make the dream come true. The similes also are symbols in the poem, they symbolize what happens to a society when dreams that they hoped for don’t come true. For example, a raisin drying in the sun takes time so it could reflect time passing with out anything happening towards the dream in the community and resulting in loss of community