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Deferred DreamsDeferred Dreams: The Haunting of Harlem
Probably anyone who has ever experienced sleep has also experienced the act of dreaming. Recall your own dreams, for example. Remember the one in which someone chases you down a dark alleyway and at the end of it you run into Barney, the dinosaur, except in your dream, Barney, to your horror, is green rather than purple! Still, you frantically plead with Barney to help save you only to find out that he has suddenly transformed into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Being a vampire, yourself, in your dream, you are terror-filled and begin running back in the direction from which you came as Buffy chases after you with a wooden stake, making screeching noises such as those you might hear coming from Adam Sandler in The Waterboy. A split second before Buffy thrusts the stake into your heart, your mother steps in front of you, with a Superwoman cape waving behind her...then suddenly you wake up. As fantastic as this dream seems, most people have had a similarly unrealistic dream.
African Americans in the early- to mid-1900s also had a dream. Though obviously not as humorous, the dream they hoped to attain became as unrealistic as the Barney dream. In his poem, “Harlem” (1951), Langston Hughes expresses the disillusionment African Americans felt when their dreams were unrealized. Not only were their hopes for economic equality deferred once (as they were laid off from jobs with the return of white males after World War I) but twice (when they lost their jobs again after World War II for the same reason). Twelve years after “Harlem” was published, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech entitled “I Have A Dream.” While King’s speech positively asserts “I have a dream today!” Hughes refers to an earlier time in history when African Americans had little hope for success and equality. Although “Harlem” illustrates the pervasiveness of the Blacks’ struggle, language cannot fully express the accompanying frustration. Instead, the poem can only convey an inevitable loss of hope.
By using imagery to appeal to all five senses, the speaker in “Harlem” illustrates how the dream has consumed one’s entire being. A person cannot look, listen, touch, taste, or even smell without being reminded of this dream. For example, the first image the speaker mentions is the drying up of a “raisin in the sun” (l. 3). We understand the effect of a parching sun on a juicy, plump grape. Visually, we see the shriveling up of the grape, no longer a possible source for a rich wine. Yet although this process that turns a grape into a raisin connotes a negative feeling, we can still consider a raisin as a useful product. After all, raisins are still edible, and many people enjoy the taste of them. The next image, however, leaves no doubt as to the negative effect it has on our senses. To think of a dream deferred “fester[ing] like a sore-- / And then run[ning]” (ll. 3-4) creates a visceral reaction. We cringe as we visually imagine the infected wound, excreting a yellowish-green pus. Not only do we have a physical reaction at the sight of such a sore, we also remember the times when we personally have had such a sore and the pain and irritation that have accompanied it. Indeed, the images provided in “Harlem” involve not only our sense of sight but our sense of smell as we imagine the “stink [of] rotten meat” (l. 6), our sense of taste in the “crust[ing] over-- / like a syrupy sweet” (ll. 7-8), our sense of touch in the sagging of “a heavy load” (l. 10), and our sense of sound through the suggested explosion in line 11.
While the combination of these various images provides the concept that the dream deferred infuses all of one’s senses, one’s whole psyche, each image also provides a way to express the different aspects of a dream being deferred. “[L]ike a raisin in the sun” (l. 3), a dream that has been exposed to harsh conditions will eventually wrinkle or wither up. A sore that has become infected will “fester” (l. 4); in the same way, if people do not protect their dreams against harmful elements, the dreams can become infected and unhealthy. One of the most powerful images is that of “rotten meat” (l. 6). Perhaps the reason this image stands out so intensely is because of the nature of rotting food. Even after removing the offensive food from the room, one can still smell the lingering stench. A deferred dream, too, can haunt someone despite it no longer being in that person’s presence. Or perhaps the speaker is suggesting that dreams are like syrups that “crust and sugar over”: if abandoned, they become useless.
Except for the last image, which is presented in the question “Or does it explode?” (l. 11), each of these images is presented in a simile. The speaker’s use of similes illustrates the inability to express the emotions that African Americans must feel as a result of the deferral of the dream. Although he attempts to convey this frustration, he realizes that each simile still does not fully express the intensity of this emotion. He seems to be talking around the subject, almost as if he keeps circling around this elusive issue that cannot be expressed. He presents one simile after another, hoping finally to find the right words. Is the dream “like” this? Is it “like” that? Or maybe it is “like” this. However, the speaker also conveys the sense that there are no right words to express this oppressiveness. The closest he comes to an answer is when he makes an assertion rather than asking a question: “Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load” (ll. 9-10). By phrasing this sentence in the form of a statement, the speaker suggests that the one sure characteristic of a dream deferred is the weight it places on the dreamer. While each of the other images is posed in the form of a question, this image is stated with more confidence. But is it? Even though this image is stated rather than asked, in using the word “[m]aybe”, the speaker subtly admits that even this characteristic does not quite express the condition of African Americans.
While the poem reveals the inadequacy of language in expressing the frustration felt by the Blacks, in contrast it clearly articulates their feelings of hopelessness. The questions serve to show the lack of hope the speaker has for the future of African Americans. He begins the poem with a question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (l. 1). But instead of answering the question, he asks more questions, implying that perhaps no answer exists. The dream deferred cannot be described, nor can anyone answer “what happens” (l. 1) to it. Likewise, the alliteration of the “d” sound in the phrase “dream deferred” emphasizes the link between these two words. Just as the sound of these words seem to fit together naturally through the “d”, the speaker understands dreams as always being deferred. In the first half of the nineteenth century, African Americans could not have a dream without it being deferred. A dream that was immediately realized did not exist for them.
This lack of hope seems to increase as the poem progresses, particularly in the rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme does not seem to follow a set pattern--a bcdcede fg g--but rhymes between words do exist. In general, one word from an image rhymes with another word from another image. For example, “sun” in line 3 rhymes with “run” in line 5, or “meat” in line 6 rhymes with “sweet” in line 8. By intertwining the rhymes between different images, the speaker creates a sense of connection between the images. Also, he produces the effect that one image builds on the last, implying a forward progression. Yet this progression occurs within the poem only in form not in concept. While the poem moves forward, the lack of hope wanes and culminates in the final line of the poem, which is emphasized through italics. As if to signify an intensity of emotion--possibly a shout of anger or a whisper of giving up--the italics convey the extreme results of an explosion. Although an explosion is often accompanied with an overwhelming noise and burst, a disintegration of material quickly follows. So, while we can see the explosion of the speaker’s emotion through the italics, we can simultaneously hear a disintegration of hope as the speaker resignedly whispers that the dream eventually explodes, leaving nothing in its wake.
Harlem, the city after which Hughes entitles his poem, represented possibility to African Americans in the early twentieth century. Hoping to evade the racism that was historically imbued within southern culture, African Americans emigrated North only to find the lack of opportunity for blacks pervasive throughout all of America and not just the South. In 1965, the Civil Rights Amendment was passed, making segregation illegal. Although the passing of this amendment was a tremendous breakthrough for African Americans, it showed how slowly change occurs. One hundred years had passed since slavery was abolished through the Emancipation Proclamation. If African Americans had to wait a century to see their basic freedoms actually enforced, how long did (or do) they have to wait to see their dreams fulfilled? What, indeed, happens to a dream deferred?
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