UNPACKING A POEM“A DREAM DEFERRED”BY LANGSTON HUGHES

English 9

Collection 7: Analyzing Poetry

“A Dream Deferred”by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.Or does it explode?

Focus Questions

What is the effect of the use of similes in the poem?

What images are portrayed in the comparisons? What theme can you deduce from the collection of these images?

What is the tone of the poem? What diction (create a list) adds to the tone?

Author & Time Period

Langston Hughes was born in Missouri in 1902

He is known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the 1920s through the 1960s

He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself

(Poets.org)

Langston Hughes

Lines 1-3 What happens to a dream deferred?

Dream = hope, aspiration for the futureTo Defer = to delay temporarily, to give in to someone elseHughes is asking what happens when people’s dreams or hopes are delayed or put on hold.

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

SIMILE = the dream is being compared to a raisin in the sunThe author is comparing deferred dreams to raisins in the sun because much like raisins in the sun, dreams are shriveled when put on hold or delayed.

Lines 4-8

Or fester like a sore-- And then run? SIMILE = the dream is being compared to a soreThe author is comparing the deferred dream to a sore which has become diseased and infected. This creates theeffect that these dreams are hard or painful to bring back to life.

Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?SIMILE = The dream is being compared to the smell of rotten meat The author is comparing the deferred dream to the horrid smell of rotten meat. This creates the effect that deferred dreams stink of decay.

SIMILE = the dream is now being compared to sweet syrup.The author is comparing the dream in this comparison to something that is sickeningly sweet.

Lines 9-11

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

SIMILE = The dream is compared to a burden. The author is saying that deferred dreams can weigh the dreamer down.

Or does it explode?

METAPHOR = the deferred dream is compared to a bomb.This is effective because a bomb can go off and explode at any time just like a “dream deferred”

Rhyme and Rhythm

Like a piece of jazz music, the poem uses rhyme and short bursts of rhythm. For example, “sun/run,” “meat/sweet,” and “load/explode”—put the ideas behind the similes and metaphor together, repeating and building up the importance of the ideas like a series of notes repeated in music.

Similarly, just as pauses in music provide dynamic rhythms, the lines in the poem have pauses between them, shown by the use of dashes and the skipped lines that set off the central section. The last important question of the poem, asked after a skipped-line pause, is like a final drumbeat that ends a piece of jazz music

Imagery

“fester like a sore” “Stink like rotten meat” “Crust and sugar over” “syrupy sweet” “sags like a heavy load”

All of the images in the poem seem to say that if a dream is postponed, it can often become something terrible (theme)

Tone

The tone of the poem can be described as despairing.

The following diction used in the poem helps to establish tone: “dry up” “fester” “sore” “stink” “rotten “sags” “heavy load” “explode”

Theme

The theme of “dream deferred” can best be stated as:

Deferring one’s dreams can have destructive consequences.