Harlem

Analyzing the Poem "Harlem"

There are many poems that we have read so far, that have an overall theme. A theme is a central idea or dominant idea of a piece of literature. It is an overall message that the Author or poet wants his readers to recognize. The theme for this poem was tricky. At first, I thought it was about the American dream. However, if you take a good look at the poem, it is so much more. The overall theme was racial equality. Langston Hughes uses similes to convey his overall message of racial equality through the use of dreams.

Langston Hughes wrote the poem "Harlem" in nineteen-fifty-one. If you look at history during the time period "Harlem" was written, you will notice a lot has been going on. The poem was written after world war two and the Great Depression. Good thing the Harlem Renaissance took place so that it can uplift people's spirits. It is a celebration of creativity and strength, a movement. Langston chose the perfect setting for this poem. Most people see Harlem as the capital of African American life. In the fifties, Harlem was not a good neighborhood to live in. They were fighting for equality during that point in time. The only thing they could confide in was their dreams. Most of them would dream to be in a better place. The dream does not necessary have to be about a person rather than who's keeping the dream away from them. They are trying to obtain their dream, which has conflict with the poem's theme, racial equality.

The Poem starts by asking the readers, "What happens when a dream deferred?" They are asking you, what happens when you put off a dream. Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or maybe it is neither? The next line in the stanza asked, "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? This is a clever use a simile to compare a dream to a raisin. This stanza can be broken down. When you leave grape out it the sun, it dehydrates and turns into a raisin. The sun plays an important significance because we see the sun as a measure of time. A dream can do the same. Dreams can suck the life out of you mentally and physically, if you forget it overtime. It goes through evolution, it won't be the same as the original, and it might not come true. Trying to obtain racial equality, suck the life out of a lot of people overtime. It mentally drained them like the grape that dehydrated out in the sun. There is another side to this stanza. When a grape turns into a raisin, which is not necessarily a bad thing. A raisin is a delicious fruit. Another way you can look at this, is when a dream goes through evolution it might be for the greater good for the people. It won't be the same as the original but you can still obtain your goal which is racial equality.

The next clever simile Langston Hughes used in his poem came from the next two stanzas. "Or fester like a sore and run?" "Does it stink like rotten meat?" I asked myself the question, "what happens when you have a sore that keeps bothering you." The answer is that you start to get aggravated because you just want it to go away. People in the fifties were getting aggravated because they were fighting for racial equality but it was not being obtained. It was aggravating them like a fester sore or rotten meat. The next stanza says, "Or crust and sugar over - like a syrupy sweet."