Analysis Of The Poem 'Dreams' By Langston Hughes

In “Dreams” by Langston Hughes, metaphors help convey the meaning of the poem and add to the power of it. He starts off in the imperative mood, telling people to hold on to their dreams (line 1). The use of the phrase “hold fast” in connection with the word “dreams” shows that Hughes is using the word “dream” to mean hope and will-power for the future—not the kind of event that takes place in the mind when we are sleeping. Then, he transitions to the conditional (“if”) of a dream being lost (line 2). The word “die” is used to make the dream that he is speaking of similar to a living thing, anything that is capable of “dying” and suggests that a dream can be lost forever as in death (2). The phrase “dreams die” uses alliteration to give a melancholic mood to the poem (2). Life is described metaphorically as “a broken-winged bird” (line 3). If a bird represents hope, then a broken-winged bird represents the loss of hope. The imagery, and the use of the conditional mood, suggests that life will be hopeless if one’s dreams are lost forever. Also, Hughes’s use of this metaphor suggests that life is painful and restricted if one has no “dream” to hold on to; instead, it is like a broken-winged bird. The reader is expected to understand
Hughes clearly is using the word in this latter sense. In the poem, he conveys the overarching idea that, without such dreams—that is, not merely hope, but the will to rise up to a higher level of existence—life lacks meaning. Through these two imperative sentences, tightly rhymed, and adorned with powerful and interesting metaphors taken from nature, he spreads the message that, without “dreams,” life can never reach the full potential of being fruitful rather than “a barren field,” and upward-moving like a bird that can fly into the