"Harlem" by Langston Hughes

The poem “Harlem” is a lyrical poem, written by poet Langston Hughes. Through out the poem the poet uses literary devise ranging from rhetorical question to similes, metaphors, alliteration and also imagery to explain to the reader what happens to a dream deferred. In the poem, the dream is not just any dream it is about goals an individual has for themselves. The poem goes on to describe possible consequences that might come about if one lets their dream become deferred. The way the poem is structured is effective in showing the readers how the results of one dreams being deferred can go from bad to worst. The poem portrays the idea of a dream being postponed in a negative light.
The tone of this poem is persuading and commands attention. Throughout the poem the speaker asks the reader questions that not meant to be answered but to persuade the reader to getting to the obvious answers. The first stanza in the poem is a question “what happens to a dream deferred?” which is altogether the theme of the poem. The rhetorical questions in the poem commands the reader’s attention in that it makes one wonder about how these things truly do connect. The poet use of rhetorical question in the poem is effective in emphasizing his point on what happens to a dream when deferred.
In each line of the poem the poet uses rhetorical questions, simile and imagery to show how, when a dream is deferred it slowly starts out first to dry up like a raisin in the sun, then it goes on to fester like a sore, then on to stink like rotten meat, then sugar over like a syrupy sweet, then to sag like a heavy load, and finally does it explode. The poet using these similes is saying that a dream when is left postponed for too long first it becomes too difficult to fulfill.
Each simile the poet uses in the poem stands for the process that an individual will go through when they have not realized their dream. The consequences that occur when a dream has gone deferred seem to go through a period in time that shows how the more a dream is prolonged the harder it is to achieve. In the first stanza the speaker’s talks about the raisin in the sun, which is when the raisin has been left out in the sun and it gets hard and also becomes difficult to eat. This can be related to when a dream has only been just a dream for so long with no actual attempt to accomplish it, the longer it is left delayed the more difficult it is to achieve. The speaker’s also discusses about other results of a dream deferred when he states “or does it fester like a sore/And then run? /Does it stink like rotten meat?... / Or does it explodes?.” In this the speaker indicates that a dream postponed becomes a burden that one keeps wondering about and thinking about what ifs. A time will then come when holding on to a dream you cannot have becomes so burdensome that they cannot take it anymore.
The structure of the poem is effective in showing that the results of a dream deferred is one that at first might seem like a little thing but in fact it is more than that. It is something that can make an individual “explode” from it because of one constantly thinking about that dream of theirs that has not yet been realized. It also makes the reader realize that maybe it takes the destruction of the speakers dream for one to make sure that does not happen to their dream.