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Dream Deferred Response

The poem Dream Deferred, written by Langston Hughes, was produced in 1951.
Although black people were not considered slaves anymore, they were still considered lesser
beings. Hughes has written his poem out of a question: What happens to a dream deferred?
Throughout the poem, he speaks about his dream and what could happen to it or what is
happening to it. His dream deferred is the equality of all people.
Hughes illustrates his idea with the help of many literary terms. One of the major devices
he uses are similes. With similes, hes able to give more variety about what happens to his
dream of equality. In the second and third line, Hughes writes, Does it dry up like a raisin in the
sun? and again in the fourth and fifth line, Does it fester like a sore and then run?. Similes
give the poem more of a curious mood especially when used in question form. General rhyme
between two words with a line in between is also important. It gives the poem a rhythmic swing
that can lead to emotion. In addition to these two literary devices, Hughes also squeezes in tone
shifts quite often for as short as the poem is. The entire poem noticeably switches from curious
to flustered to hopeful to hopeless and then back to curious on the last line. Hughes last three
lines state, Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?. The word maybe gives
off the hopeless vibe. An or right after the maybe brings back life to the poem. It helps give
the reader the feeling that maybe a dream isnt permanently put off.
The theme of inequality is obvious once mild research is done about the author. Hughes
is writing about the dream of equality fading away for every African-American. The simple
statement of What happens to a dream deferred? in line one is enough to give the hint that
hes talking about someones (or many peoples) hopes and dreams. Hes talking about their
dreams being put off. The author wants the reader to understand that the dream of equality is
being deferred by white men and women. In the entire poem, Hughes is having one thing
destroy another. The sun drying up a raisin, crust enveloping a pastry, mold on meat, et cetera.
This could be a symbol of white men and women remaining in unjust power over black people.
Or say that the objects that the sun, crust or mold is destroying are the dreams of people who
are segregated from the rest. All of the bad things are white peoples procrastination on making
everyone equal.
This poems message about inequality was rewardingfun to dig out. Through Hughess
perspective, its clear inequality was something that wasnt necessary around that time. And it
could have been fixed given the chance.

Scoring: Poetry Analysis Essay


I can use text evidence to determine the theme of a poem.

Developing Nearly Proficient Proficient Highly Proficient

I can make inferences about what the poem means based on what the text says.

Developing Nearly Proficient Proficient Highly Proficient


I can identify, analyze, and interpret figurative language/literary devices.

Developing Nearly Proficient Proficient Highly Proficient

Overall Score: ______HP______ Overall Percentage/Grade: __100______

Really nice job analyzing the literary devices! Strong effort.

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