Harlem 1951

Julyana Cacari
February 27, 2015
ENC1102

Harlem 1951 1. Yes, the question asked in this poem could have been raised by any individual or group whose dreams and aspirations have been thwarted because if you have ever had your hopes and dreams just crash, you’d have a feeling the same way the author described in the poem. Feelings such as “a raisin drying in the sun” or “...just suga like a heavy load” aren’t ways to describe when you feel accomplished of reaching your goals and living out your dreams. 2. If the title was “Dream Deferred”, it would not affect my reading of the poem’s symbolic significance. The fact that the poem itself is still the same, the meaning of it is still the same as well. Content is what matters when reading and trying to see the symbolic significance of writing. 3. The final line of the poem “Or does it explode?” can be completed as a simile because it is still being compared to feelings you might feel when your hopes and dreams have been crushed. I guess the effect of the speaker not completing the simile is to give the poem a little “twist”. Maybe you’re not supposed to feel smaller or shrunk down, maybe you feel a whole explosion of emotions. It was a useful strategy because it gets you to think that once a dream is deferred, is it “small, rotten, soggy, but still there?” or “it has bursted, and no longer in reach, no longer existing?”.