"Dream Deferred' by Langston Hughes

This poem is very simplistic but very profound at the same time. There is not a real sense of form or pattern to the poem. Hyphens and questions are woven throughout, and similes take up entire lines for themselves. This structure allows the reader to ponder the analogies even more because of the emphasis on them as to how they were written. The common them of the poem is that we, as humans, sometimes have no idea what to do with dreams we cannot have. However, we always want what we can't have. Those things which are unavailable to us just seem that much more intriguing to possess. But really: what do we do with dreams we cannot have? Do we move on? Do we try harder? Or do we simply explode?

These all have to do with the overall tone of the poem: questioning. The poem consists of six questions; almost every other line contains a question. This means that out of the eleven written lines in the poem, more than half are questions. The questioning causes the reader to be just as involved in the poem as the author is. Asking these rhetorical questions causes the reader to stop and think about what happens when we are deprived of what we have been seeking and how to handle it. The tone is also somewhat depressed. There is no uplifting undertone in this poem. For example, negative terms are infused throughout such as "dry up" "fester like a sore" "stink like rotten meat" "sags like a heavy load" and "explode." There are two positive lines "crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet." However, with all the other negative lines, these positive phrases just seem out of place. Perhaps that's the point. I think that this symbolizes that when our hopes and dreams crash and burn, we become so absorbed in the the negative aspects of the situation. Yes, there are a few positive things that we ponder, but for the most part, it just seems impossible to move on. However, we do what we can to be mesmerized by that tiny glimmer of hope in order to see life from a new perspective instead of exploding and giving up on opportunity.