Bizarre Take #7 - Diving Deeper into the World of Dreams with my Buddy Hughes!

Bizarre Take #7 - Diving Deeper into the World of Dreams with my Buddy Hughes!



For this week’s blog, we were assigned to research some more poems by renowned author Langston Hughes, and dive deeper into its meaning. When I was researching, a poem quickly caught my eye. It was titled “Harlem”. Now, my first thought was immediately the Harlem Renaissance, and as my interest was obviously peaked, I decided to choose this as my poem. While annotating I noticed several clever word and language choices Hughes pursued throughout this poem. Hughes opens with a rhetorical question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” This gives the audience something to think about and explore throughout the rest of the poem before he builds up to the main theme. For example, he utilized quite a lot of figurative language, such as similes, when he wrote “like a raisin in the sun”. This use of similes compared the idea of dreams to various different items, such as a shriveled up raisin to represent a broken dream, or a sweet syrup, to represent the potential dreams carry with them. These similes convey the possibilities a dream could reach, such as shriveling up like a “raisin”, “festering like a sore”, “stinking like rotten meat”, or being “sweet like syrup”. It shows all the aspects to a dream, whether those are positive or negative.

Throughout these similes, he also juxtaposes the idea of sugar and stink, to show the polar extremes a dream could reach. He also uses “sun” to communicate the idea of obstacles and struggles coming one’s way. All of these word choices combine to build the central theme that one could face negative outcomes if their dreams or desires don’t happen the way they intended to; that is the idea of a dream being deferred. Hughes continues to go deeper with this theme through the idea of Harlem. Harlem is a sector in New York City that was previously occupied by mostly African Americans. As Hughes is an African American himself, he continues to advance the idea that unlike other Americans, people of color did not have the same opportunities to attain success and due to preconceived notions regarding prejudice and discrimination. His main audience was definitely people of color, as he wanted to address a taboo idea that usually goes unspoken. However, his ideas regarding dreams is still relevant to other groups of people, as both can share the same struggles regardless of who they are. The poem addresses the idea that many strive for dreams to be fulfilled, yet there are many negative outcomes that could occur, and it's important to keep sight of your main goal, despite the struggles along the way.

  • Poetry Enthusiast,

  • Prisha

Comments

  1. Jaspreet SinghNovember 5, 2023 at 9:01 AM

    Your analysis was so interesting! I had also done “Harlem” and also saw the connection to the Harlem Renaissance. The idea of the word choice being the highs and lows that the dream could reach was really good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Divya DwarakanathNovember 5, 2023 at 3:04 PM

    I loved how you incorporated information about Harlem into your analysis to emphasize the point you were making. Your thoughts about the audience, people of colour, and the way you connected them to the theme of the poem, perseverance, was really well done too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 5, 2023 at 7:13 PM

    I liked how instead of just talking about word choice you talked about other rhetorical devices as well, like figurative language and juxtapositions.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 5, 2023 at 8:56 PM

    I really liked how you explained the significance of the Harlem Rennaissance, as it is something I am not very familiar with. Nice analysis as well. :)) - Zahra

    ReplyDelete

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