HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
Stylistic Devices in “A Dream Deferred”
What is life worth without dreams and the hope that
INTRODUCTION
Attention-getting
opener
those dreams can come true someday? What happens when the
achievement of a dream is postponed —again and again?
Langston Hughes’s creates a way for many voices to respond
to their deferred dreams in a collection of over eighty short
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
poems, published under the title Montage of a Dream Deferred.
Thesis (with title
and author)
In one of those short poems in the collection, titled “A Dream
Deferred,” or “Harlem” in the Montage, Langston Hughes
answers these questions by using the stylistic devices of
diction, figurative language, and sound to show that keeping
people from achieving their dreams can have destructive
consequences.
BODY
First stylistic
device: diction
The first stylistic device—diction—gives important
information about the speaker in “ A Dream Deferred.” In
"Harlem" ("Dream Deferred") from Collected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1994 by the
Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
From "Montage of a Dream Deferred" from Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1959 by
Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
Hughes’s Montage—a collection of individual parts arranged
to create an overall impression—a variety of different speakers
address the question: “What happens to a dream deferred?”
Each voice in Montage, gives the reader a general picture of
the kinds of dreams that have been set aside. The voices are all
different from one another, but they all sound like interrupted
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
bits of conversation. However, the diction in “A Dream
Deferred” is unique among the collection of voices. It is more
formal, as if the speaker is confronting the question about
deferred dreams, not with answers or short bursts of
Nuance explained
conversation, but with other dramatic questions. In doing so,
the diction of the poem “A Dream Deferred” shows the
consequences of deferring dreams: Unanswered questions
result in more unanswerable questions.
In Hughes’s montage of voices, many of the speakers
use first-person pronouns (I, my, we, our), and the tone of each
voice is informal, full of slang expressions. Occasionally, the
speakers in Montage use second-person pronouns (you, your),
but the tone of the speakers is still casual, again because the
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
speakers use slang. In contrast, the speaker in “A Dream
Nuance explained
Deferred” is an observer. The tone of the word choices is
different from the rest of the poems in Hughes’s Montage, as if
the speaker (Hughes, perhaps) stands outside listening to all the
other speakers and asks questions about what he hears. His
questions are direct, without slang. He uses ordinary language,
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
but his questions are not easy to answer. The ordinary language
contrasts with the importance of the questions.
For example, in “ A Dream Deferred,” Hughes starts
with a question to get his readers thinking about his message:
“What happens to a dream deferred?” (line 1). His diction here
emphasizes his theme. He uses the word “dream” to mean a
hope for or a vision of a better future. The word “dream” is a
familiar word to most readers, who understand the importance
of having dreams and the chance for fulfilling them. Usually in
Complexity
explained
English an adjective comes before the noun. By placing
“deferred” after the noun, Hughes emphasizes the word
“deferred.” The reader notices the word “deferred” and begins
to speculate on its meaning. Hughes chooses the word defer for
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
its two meanings. It can mean both “to put something off until
sometime in the future” and “to give in to what someone else
Ambiguity
explained
wants.” Hughes uses the word in both ways: Someone else
postpones the dream, but the dreamer gives in to the delay. In
this way, the diction helps reinforce the theme. Moreover, the
question then is, “How long will the dreamer accept the
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
postponement of his or her dream?”
Second stylistic
device: figurative
language
In the next part of the poem, Hughes answers this basic
question about deferred dreams with a series of similes written
as questions. The first simile asks if a deferred dream dries up
“like a raisin in the sun” (3). The image of the dried and
wrinkled raisin contrasts with the fat, juicy grape the dream
Complexities
explained
once was. The images created by the following three similes
Similes
are worse. Does the deferred dream “fester like a sore— / And
then run” (4–5) or “stink like rotten meat” (6) or “crust and
sugar over— / like a syrupy sweet” (7–8)? The images in these
similes seem to say that if a dream is postponed, it rots or
spoils or infects the dreamer. In each of the questions, the word
choice is casual and dark: “dry up,” “fester,” and “stink” are
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
not pretty words to the ear. Yet the informal diction and the
figurative language match each other, creating important
questions. In contrast, the last simile is not a question but a
guess: “Maybe” a deferred dream “just sags / like a heavy
load” (9–10). This simile makes the deferred dream seem like a
heavy burden carried on the dreamer’s back, making him or her
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
bow under its weight. All of these similes—the four questions
and the proposed answer—suggest that a deferred dream
becomes something terrible, such as a burden, not something
bright and hopeful, such as an opportunity for the dreamer.
In the poem’s last line, Hughes uses another piece of
Metaphor
figurative language, a metaphor—“Or does it explode?”
(11)—to address his message. He emphasizes the metaphor
even more by using different print from the rest of the poem.
He seems to be saying that this is exactly what happens: A
deferred dream is a bomb that finally explodes. He might also
mean that it is not the dream but the dreamer that explodes—in
anger. Of course the consequences of that explosion, for the
dreamer and for the reader, are left to the reader’s imagination.
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
A striking part of the figurative language is the poem’s
imagery and sensory language, even though the effects might
Imagery
not be pleasant. The images of “raisin” (3) and “syrupy sweet”
(8) appeal to the reader’s sense of taste. They echo the cliché “I
wanted [something] so badly that I could taste it.” This time,
however, the sweet taste of the dream may be, in the poem, just
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Nuance explained
“rotten meat” (6)—disgusting, providing no nourishment. The
sense of touch and the sense of smell are also mentioned by the
image of the “heavy load” (10), the festering and running sore
(4–5), as well as the “stink” of the rotting meat (6). All of the
images work together to surprise the reader. Dreams and their
imagined beauty are brought down to ugly reality. The imagery
and sensory language reveal the reality.
Third stylistic
device: sound
To create his poetry, Hughes would sometimes listen to
the music in a jazz club and write as he listened to the sounds
and rhythms of the songs. In fact, Hughes begins his Montage,
in a section titled “Dream Boogie,” by referring to sound:
“Ain’t you heard / The boogie-woogie rumble / Of a dream
deferred” (2–4). He picks up that same phrase (“boogie-woogie
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
rumble”) and amplifies it with another musical reference in
“Boogie: 1 a. m.,” a later poem in the series: “Trilling the
treble / And twining the bass / Into midnight ruffles / Of cat-gut
lace” (5–8).
The sound of “A Dream Deferred” intensifies its
meaning even more. Like a piece of jazz music, the poem uses
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Rhyme
rhyme and short bursts of rhythm. The rhymes—“sun/run,”
“meat/sweet,” and “load/explode”—pull the ideas behind the
Nuance explained
similes and the metaphor together, repeating and building up
the importance of the ideas like a series of notes repeated in
Repetition
music. Repetition of words and phrases, such as “Or” and
“Does it” at the beginning of several lines in the poem also
creates a series of increasingly intense questions. Similarly, just
Rhythm
as pauses in music provide dynamic rhythms, the lines in the
poem have pauses between them, shown by the use of dashes
and the skipped lines that set off the central section. Setting off
the image of the “heavy load” and emphasizing the last line of
the poem suggests that the explosion of the heavy load
becomes more significant as the reader slows down to read the
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Poem
last line. The last important question of the poem—“Or does it
Nuance explained
explode?” (11)—asked after a skipped-line pause, is like a final
drumbeat that ends a piece of jazz music.
CONCLUSION
Restatement of
thesis
Just what does happen when the achievement of a dream
is postponed again and again? Hughes uses the stylistic devices
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
of diction, figurative language, and sound to tell his readers
Summary of main
points
what might happen to a deferred dream. The word “deferred”
hints that the dreamer might not always accept the
postponement of his or her dream. The five similes seem to say
that only the dreamer is hurt. In the final metaphor, however,
the deferred dream is a bomb that will eventually explode and
hurt many people. Hughes ties the poem together with jazzy
Relation to broader
themes in life
rhyme and rhythm. “A Dream Deferred” carries an idea we
should all consider—not to let our own dreams become
deferred, and not to block others in their quests to follow their
own dreams.
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