Harlem BY LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

Note : 

At some point in our lives, we all have hopes and dreams for our future. Some people work hard to accomplish their dreams while others put their dreams on hold due to various circumstances in their lives. In the poem Harlem, Langston Hughes helps readers contemplate their dreams and what it means to postpone them. As such, the poem is often referred to as Dream Deferred. 

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Harlem was written in 1951 during a time when many blacks felt limited in their ability to achieve 'The American Dream.' Although the Civil War was long over and blacks technically had the right to vote, schools were still segregated and many blacks could only find basic jobs that didn't provide them with a future. Therefore, many of them had little hope that their futures could be different; many thought their dreams would always remain out of their grasp.

Theme 

The poem Harlem by Langston Hughes reflects the post World War II mood of many African Americans. ... The 'dream deferred' is the long- postponed and frustrated dream of African Americans; a dream of freedom, equality, dignity, opportunity and success.

Harlem Summary

The first line of the poem poses a provocative question: "What happens to a dream deferred?" Instead of giving a direct answer, the speaker asks a series of follow-up questions, suggesting that the dream deferred dries up "like a raisin in the sun" or sags "like a heavy load."

The speaker wonders what happens to a deferred dream. He wonders if it dries up like a raisin in the sun, or if it oozes like a wound and then runs. It might smell like rotten meat or develop a sugary crust. It might just sag like a “heavy load,” or it might explode...

Analysis : 

Hughes begins his poem with a question. “What happens to a dream deferred?” The word, deferred..

This short poem is one of Hughes’s most famous works; it is likely the most common Langston Hughes poem taught in American schools.

The whole poem  is built in the structure of rhetoric. The speaker of the poem is black poet. Black people were given the dreams of equity and equality. But these dreams never came true. Despite legal, political and social consensus to abolish the apartheid, black people could never experience the indiscriminate society. In other worlds, their dream never came true. Blacks are promised dreams of equality, justice, freedom, in discrimination, but not fulfilled. They are delayed, deferred and postponed. Only promissory note has been given but has never been brought into reality.

The speaker muses about the fate of a “dream deferred.” It is not entirely clear who the speaker is –perhaps the poet, perhaps a professor, perhaps an undefined black man or woman. The question is a powerful one, and there is a sense of silence after it. Hughes then uses vivid analogies to evoke the image of a postponed dream. 

Through this poem Langston Hughes examines the possible effects caused by the dream, when they are constantly deferred. When the dreams are constantly deferred, or when dreams are constantly postponed and delayed we are naturally cut between hope and hopelessness. The dreams remain in the mind like a heavy load. When these loads are extended, explosions are inevitable. 

The speaker rhetorically suggests that the dreams will explode and destroy all the limitations imposed upon them. After that the society of their dream will be born.

When the dream is postponed or deferred or delayed, it brings frustration, it dries up like a raisin in the sun but there is wet inside, likewise it stinks like rotten meat, it becomes fester like a sore and one day it will explode and cause larger social damages. The poem is in the form of a series of questions, a certain inhabitant of Harlem asks. The first image in the poem is “dream dries up like a raisin”. The simile likens the original dream to a grape, which is sound, juicy, green and fresh since the dream has been neglected for too long, it has probably dried up.

The next image in the poem “fester like” a sore and then run” conveys a sense of infection and pain. Comparing the dream to a sore of a body, the poet suggests that unfulfilled dreams become part of us, like a longstanding injury that has gathered pus. The word “fester” connotes something decay and “run” literally refers to pus. From this viewpoint of the speaker, this denotes to the pain that one has when one’s dreams always defers. A postponed dream is like a painful injury that begins to be infected.

The next image “Does it stink like rotten meat” intensified the sense of disgust. A dream deferred may also stink. The poet also hints at the disastrous results of ignoring or blocking people’s dreams. Summing up, ‘Harlem’ yields special insight into the African American condition in the gestation period of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Hughes is aware of the answers provided in this specific Proverb, but this poem gives more depth of insight into his specific dream and the result of his not having seen it fulfilled.

The question about raisins and the sun gives the readers vivid imagery of what he feels is happening to him as he has not yet seen his dream fulfilled.

This second question of the poem, relating to festering like a sore, paints a grotesque picture for the readers, one which can help them to strongly identify with the disgust Hughes feels. At the time he wrote this poem, the slaves had been free nearly ninety years, and yet were still not treated as equals. This is his dream deferred. He compares his disappointment to a sore which festers and oozes, thoroughly giving his readers an understanding of the depths of his disgust.

His next question about how it smells suggests two possible endings for this dream deferred. The first, being that like a piece of meat left to rot, it would just continue to get worse and worse the longer their hope for equality was denied. The second option is that it would simply crust over. People would become used to living in a separate society and become comfortable living their own lives in their own separate communities.

In the next verse, the speaker offers his own view. It becomes clear that he does not believe this dream will “sugar over” and somehow become tolerable, perhaps even sweet. Rather, he gives his own suggestion that,

Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

This suggests that he feels the heavy weight of the many years his he and his ancestors would wait for others to see them as equal. Hughes felt the heavy burden of this weight upon his shoulders. It had already been nearly ninety years since the African American people were freed and given rights as human beings. Yet, as they lived in separate communities, they were not treated as equals, and Hughes likened this to the feeling of going through life carrying a very heavy load.

The last line of this poem is written in italics, which causes the reader to pay extra close attention to the emphasis put on this final question. He asks,

Or does it explode?

With this final question, Hughes implies that one can only carry a heavy load for so long. He suggests that a festering sore…rotting meat, can only be tolerated for so long. He implies with this line that something is about to happen. It is clear that Hughes believes that the African American people cannot tolerate the way they have been treated in society for much longer. He clearly reveals that after years of tolerating mistreatment, he certainly feels like giving way to anger, or exploding. And who wouldn’t? Although his life story reveals that he did not explode, but rather expressed not only his dissatisfaction with society, but his intellect and literary genius in such a way as to prove wrong the discrimination that oppressed him and to pave the way for many others to follow in the pursuit of civil rights for African Americans.