The first thought I encountered when reading this poem was the title, Harlem. It struck my mind about the Harlem Renaissance that happened in 1920s America. The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American literature, art and music. Langston Hughes the author of the poem was also a key figure in this movement so I immediately started inferring that this poem would have something to do with African American culture before even reading it.
The poem is arranged into four stanzas, the first and last of these stanzas are just one line long with question marks at the end and the second stanza comprises seven lines and the third two lines. Hughes asks a series of questions using metaphors, first, he asks whether the dream dries up like a raisin in the sun then he asks whether it festers like a sore and then runs again he asks if the dream would stink like rotten meat. The final question however is different from the rest because it is a more positive question and equates a different meaning, “Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?”. In the third stanza, Huges stops asking questions and just says the dream simply grows weak and is more like a heavy burden that one must carry with them. The final stanza, is italicized and again asks another question, he asks whether or not the dream might just end up exploding. This poem was written in a poem style called free verse which had irregular line lengths and erratic rhythms similar to that of jazz music at the time. There is no rhyme or alliteration in the poem.
After reading the poem for the first time the line “What happens to a dream deferred?” and the many metaphors presented after the question of how a dream dies made me think the plot of this poem was about how people have all these dreams and then they just let them die. The very next question I had after forming this overall plot of the poem was how it could somehow connect back to the overall context of the poem which was the Harlem Renaissance. Due to the context of the time this poem was being written, I assumed the audience was African Americans who at the time were struggling to survive in the face of discrimination. The interesting part is that in the poem there are no references to African American culture or values so you have to assume a lot here and use the context of history to infer a much deeper meaning behind the text.
In Harlem, I believe one of the main themes in the poem is the concept of the American dream which is the belief that anyone regardless of their background can be successful in America. This leads me to believe that Harlem was written to question this concept for African Americans because they faced such harsh discrimination at this time it was too difficult to overcome the prejudice of white America in the 1920s to achieve the American dream.
The many images Hughes describes using various similes reveal a conflicted attitude toward this American Dream for African Americans in specific. While other people can work hard to make themselves more successful, Hughes believes that African Americans are being left in the dust as second-class citizens. One of the most confusing images brought up in the poem was the line about a sugary coating of a boiled sweet because it is a more positive image compared to other images like rotten meat and festering sores. This simile, however, is the biggest connection to the main theme because he talks about a sugar coating which makes something that would normally taste bad be sweeter and there lies the true meaning of Hughes’s poem. African Americans are told over and over again about this American dream to keep them satisfied with their current state as second-class citizens when in reality it’s just an illusion to keep them obedient while everyone else has more opportunities than them. Another line that really gave away the meaning behind the poem was the “dream deferred” line the deferred in specific made me think that these dreams had to be slowed down or stopped because of African American discrimination.
The final line of the poem also caused a lot of confusion for me because at first, I thought Hughes was trying to show how people’s dreams can explode into nothing if they don’t try hard enough. After connecting this line back to the theme however it could suggest that the continued mistreatment of African Americans could lead to their anger bursting out into something more violent. What makes this poem even more interesting is how Hughes’s deeper meaning behind the line would have an almost prophetic life prediction with the American Civil rights movement and people like Malcolm X using this anger as he mentioned to fight racism and inequality.
Hello Myuren, this blog post is so detailed and interesting. I think the topic of the poem you chose to analyze is very interesting and crucial in societies advancement. When you were choosing a poem to analyze, did you have this topic in mind or did this poem come up in your feed and you chose to follow it? I believe it is really cool that the author of the poem, also played a huge part in the harlem renaissance movement. Do you know if he is more societally recognized through his poems on the Harlem Renaissance Movement or the actual spreading of African American music/art? I think it is really interesting how he compares a dream being wasted to a raisin drying in the sun….then he compares it to rotten meat. I wonder why Langston Hughes chose to compare the act of not following your dreams to food, instead of comparing it to something else. I think it is really interesting how you figured out the main theme of the poem-the power to achieve the ‘American dream’ despite the background one may have. I agree with you that in this case, African Americans didn’t have the freedom to follow the “American Dream” because of their race and the discrimination they faced solely in their background. Overall, thank you for this educational post.