Langston Hughes
Literally Analysis
Dreams are aspirations that we hope to reach on our lifetime. They are the day that gives us the drive to live our lives and accomplish our goals. When reaching our goals, we will do anything to get to our destination. But what happens when your dreams deferred and put on hold due to unseen circumstances? Or what do you so when someone tells you that you can not so the things you want to so because of the pigmentation of your skin? Langton Hughes “Harlem: A Dream Deferred” expresses that hardship and African Americans had to go through during the early 20th century. “A Dream Deferred” comes from a collection of poems “A Montage of a Dream Deferred” written in 1932 during the Harlem Renaissance. At this time in history, the Jim Crow laws were in affect and the laws from Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal”. Langston Hughes recognized not only this promise of a dream but also its relative inaccessibility to his peers, primarily because of race.
He started off with question “What happens to a dream deferred”. Making the audience think for second, then he continued with more questions. It seems like the author is either upset with a recent event that just happened in his life or just really confused about something that pondering him. The dream that the author is referring to is a certain goal in his lifetime. Dreams are not just the image that partakes in our sleep; they can be long term goals that we set for our lives. Although the author does not specified what type of dream it was, he leaves it up to the reader on what kind of dream that it is. But the author’s position is pretty clear that it is an important and somehow has been pt on hold from a consequence unknown.
As the poem goes on, we explore some of the negative effects of the consequence unknown. With each line, the author offers a negative reaction. The first question is “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” A raisin is already