The So-Called American Dream

"A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes speaks for African-Americans in a long struggle for racial justice, for people who believe in the American dream that anything is attainable through hard work. The concept plays on the idea that American is a classless society, although it is obviously not, as any honest examination of the United States will reveal. The idealistic vision of the American Dream also assumes that people are not discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, gender, and national origin, another thing which is unfortunately not true in the United States.

Many people believe that the structure of American society belies the idealistic goal of the American Dream, pointing to examples of inequality rooted in class, race, and ethnic origin which suggest that the American Dream is not attainable for all.

For instance, African Americans in many parts of the nation resisted to racial segregation and discrimination with strategies such as civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, marches, protests and boycotts. However, still they were denied the American Dream that all Americans deserved.

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."

Thesis: "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost carries a retrospective tone as its speaker is reflecting about his choices in life and determining that he has made the right choices even though he chose his path differently than most people.

Essentials of Life

This simple image stands for the simple idea that Williams presents in "The Red Wheelbarrow". In his poem, he includes three concrete images, "wheelbarrow", "water", and "chicken" which help him develop the idea that life depends so much on labor, growth, and food.

Williams uses the wheelbarrow to symbolize labor. A wheelbarrow is a one-wheeled, hand-propelled vehicle designed to be pushed and guided by a person. It could be used to transport food, tools, materials, etc. However, it functions only when a person puts labor into it. Without labor, the world tends toward disorder. Things become chaotic; food runs out; growth ceases. In the end, people starve.

Another essential of life is growth. Williams uses water to symbolize growth and development. Without growth, all labor is wasted. A shortage of food occurs and famine spreads.

Lastly, Williams uses a chicken to symbolize food. Without food, labor is limited. When labor is short, growth is not sustainable.

So much depends upon labor, growth and food; without one, we can't have the others. This visual has the three critical images that Williams includes in his poem. It serves as a way for readers to grab something concrete as they try to understand Williams’ abstract idea about dependency. The visual has a white chicken, a red wheelbarrow, water, and a lot of cupcakes in the wheelbarrow and on the ground as a way to amuse observers.

Similarly, when readers first look at Williams’ poem, they see it as a humorous rather than a serious poem because it is not properly punctuated and only contains sixteen words. Despite the shortness, Williams’ poem, with its images, successfully engulfs a gigantic and complex life phenomenon circulating around the idea of dependency.

Metaphors for Death

Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 73" and Thomas’ "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" focus on the theme of death and its effect on human beings. Both of the poems heavily use metaphors to develop emotions and attitudes toward death.

In "Sonnet 73", there exists a melancholy tone that engulfs the entire poem. This may be intended because Shakespeare wants to express that death is a not a happy ending. He compresses time down from a season, to a day, then to a moment to convey his message that youth is fading. He uses death’s second self, night, twilight, ‘sunset fadeth’ and the ‘glowing of fire’ as a mechanism to manifest death. By using these metaphors, Shakespeare indirectly talks about how sleep, darkness, sunset, and the dying of a fire lead to the theme of death. For example, Shakespeare refers to death’s second self as sleep to indicate that there is a possibility that a person may not wake up again when fallen asleep. He also uses ‘sunset fadeth’ to specify the last state of life that a person is in.

Similarly, in "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", Thomas uses ‘good night’, meteors, ‘close of day’, and ‘dying of the light’ as a way to bring the readers to the idea of death. However, Thomas’ poem has a frustrated and angry tone in it as he pleads with his father not to give up his fight for life. The ‘dying of the light’ is a powerful metaphor. Thomas uses it to describe the moment between life and death that his father is in. He also uses ‘close of day’ as a way to indicate that death is creeping in as the life ended. This is another way for him to talk about death indirectly. Lastly, he mentions ‘good night’ to refer to sleep. Again, this could invoke the idea of death because when a person sleeps, he or she might not wake up the next day.

Both of these poems have different approach toward death. Shakespeare’s approach is more relax and accepting because he is addressing a lover in order to get more love. As for Thomas, his approach is furious and upset as he urges his father to "curse" and fight death.

Both Shakespeare and Thomas talk about death, but their tone is different. Nevertheless, both of them effectively use metaphors to manifest death and how it could potentially affect human beings.

Favorite Word&Quote

Word: Etymology

Quote: In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. -Tony Robbins