Poetry Analysis: Langston Hughes’ “Harlem-A Dream Deferred”

Langston Hughes poem “Harlem- A Dream Deferred” was written in 1951.The blacks were distraught with dreams and disillusionment after the Civil War had freed them from the shackles of slavery. Though they were liberated and granted the rights to vote by federal laws, the blacks were marginalized in all other significant spheres as they were limited to segregated schools .They were not attributed with the capacity to think and were restricted to menial work. Earlier, if the system of slavery downgraded the blacks openly, the current state of affairs had a ‘sophisticated’ way of doing it. The abolition of slavery was a dream the blacks nurtured. However, it transformed into –‘a dream deferred’ as though the dream was always reserved for the future tense. The raw comparisons verging on revolting images reflects the language of the blacks devoid of any sophisticated erudition, and is straight to the point.

The revision to the U.S. Constitution as approved in the post-Civil War period established basic rights to black Americans as American citizens. Nevertheless, the court and legislative laws later weakened the officially permitted security of the blacks. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson) that it was lawful to provide “separate but equal” accommodations for passengers of Louisiana’s railroads. This law resulted in segregated schools, establishments, institutions, restaurants, etc.

The dream here is a vision of the blacks that their collective consciousness conjured up. Note that it not only the realization of the dream that is deferred; the very act of dreaming is deferred. One dreams only when one possesses hope, the person who does not possess any hope loses the capacity to dream. The current state of affairs had left them with little hope. Alliteration in the phrase lends emphasis to the same.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

The dream is compared to a raisin that dries up as it is exposed to the sun. The imagery signifies the dream getting ‘weathered’ owing to circumstances., Their is also the shrinking of the raisin signifying the condensation of dreams. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry utilized the phrase as the title of her celebrated play, A Raisin in the Sun, a drama on the trauma of a black family who reside in a cramped apartment fighting racial prejudices and financial hurdles. It won wide-spread critical acclaim and was awarded with the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award

The second image points to the dream getting infected, as one pursues the dream with an aim just to reach the ends,the means does not count. The means will be infested with vile, lies and deceit. The pursuer of the dream will then overlook that the dream lay in the journey and not in the destination. The meaningful purpose of the dream is then relegated to the background

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet

If the dream is kept aside, as the passion subsides, it will stink like rotten meat. The aspiration will then stagnate and decompose with the onslaught of time. The expression ‘crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet’ denotes it appearing like the horizon: near, and yet so far. That it can be tasted, but not eaten whole-heartedly.

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

The above lines give the image of sagging breasts due to lack of support. The idea thus signifies that the dream begins to grow on one, like part of one’s body. But due to adequate lack of support has sagged becoming a burden to the individual who bears it. It also connotes something cancerous growing on the bearer who can no longer hold on to the dream, as it will eventually destroy the dreamer himself.

And sometimes the dream just explodes like a pressurized container. It can no longer handle any more pressure (oppression) and just blows up.

Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion