Langston Hughes, Dream Deferred

"What Happens to a Dream Deferred?" Langston Hughes was a prolific writer. In the forty years between his first book in 1926 and his death in 1967, he devoted his life to writing and lecturing. Hughes was seen as one of the leaders in the Harlem renaissance, which was an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among African-Americans in the 1920 's. In 1951, Hughes published a volume of poetry titled Montague of a Dream Deferred in which his poem "Harlem" can be found. This poem is one man 's expression of his dreams during a difficult time period. As a black man in a time period where African-Americans were considered an inferior group of people, dreams and goals would have been difficult to realize. It is just as easy to relate this poem to dreams in general. Hughes opens this poem by posing the question "what happens to a dream deferred?"(1) In the lines that follow, Hughes uses aspects of imagery, simile and metaphor to unveil a picture in the readers mind. Hughes uses imagery in a carefully arranged series of images that also function as figures of speech. By doing this he suggests that people should not delay their dreams because the more they postpone them, the more their dreams will change and become less of reality and more of just a dream. Imagery is in twined with similes that bring this poem to life in the readers mind. Similes are most apparent throughout the poem; we can find them in almost every line. Hughes asks the question, "Does it [the dream] dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?"(2-3) The comparison of the dream to a raisin shows how a dream that is put off changes dramatically and will not turn out as the person originally intended. A raisin that has been sitting in the sun dries up completely and becomes hard and impossible to eat, the value is sucked out. Or maybe it will "fester like a sore/ and then run"(4-5) If you have a sore that festers and then runs, it means that it is infected and stays with your body. This is a painful reminder of what could have been. If the dream is put off for too long it will start to "stink like rotten meat"(6). A dream that is not realized may begin to decay because it dies within the person. The dream not realized may also become heavy to bear and may "sag/ like a heavy load"(9-10). The last stanza leaves the reader with a powerful visual image, but instead of simile, Hughes uses the metaphor of an explosion. When you think of an explosion, you think of great destruction, like a bomb. The person who 's dream is deferred loses all hope and feels as if something has exploded inside, causing massive destruction. All in all, this poem is a very universal poem. Written by a talented African-American man in a time when people of his ethnic group were denied many freedoms, this poem has lived on for years even with the changes in society. There are still many struggles for Americans, of every ethnic group, today to recognize hopes and dreams, but society has come a long way from when this poem was written. "Dream Deferred" is a poem that will never be outdated.

Works Cited
Barnet, sylvan, et al., ed. Literature for Composition: Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 7th ed. New York: Pearson, 2005
Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." Barnet 47.
"Hughes, Langston." World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed.
Van Auken, Annie. "Life of Langston Hughes." www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.

Cited: Barnet, sylvan, et al., ed. Literature for Composition: Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 7th ed. New York: Pearson, 2005 Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." Barnet 47. "Hughes, Langston." World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed. Van Auken, Annie. "Life of Langston Hughes." www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.