Dream a Little Dream

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes incorporates a series of similes to generate an abstract sense of the possible catastrophe when a dream is put on hold. What happens to such a dream is not clearly stated, but the use of critical verbs gives various senses to hint that a beautiful dream could negatively affect everybody when it’s deferred.

It becomes dark when it’s dried up, and gross when it festers like a sore. Then, it stinks like rotten meat but eventually it gets covered up. In the end, the dream turns into despair and negatively impacts society. These similes give the readers various senses because they could see when something’s dried up, smell when something’s stink, taste when something’s sweet, and hear when something explodes.

Hughes compares a deferred dream to a raisin. He is creating an image that doesn’t have any extreme connotation in it, besides saying that the dream is being deserted and now it turns dark. When he compares a deferred dream to a festering sore, the image is getting negative and gross. The image gets more intense and disturbing when he associates a deferred dream with rotten meat. Lastly, he conceals the negative image with a syrupy sweet. But the dream gets worst and turns into despair and bursts.

Hughes starts the poem out with a main question, and then follows a series of sub-questions, each containing a critical verb that shows the progression of the possible unfortunate event that radiates from a deferred dream. The order of the questions is critical to the construction of this poem. Hughes’ special use of verbs in each question creates a progressive imagery of the temporary stages that a deferred dream resides.

As the poem unfolds and more questions emerge, the tone gets more and more disturbing and eventually ends with something similar to a threat, which may or may not be truly why Langston Hughes organized the questions the way he did in "Harlem."