Dreams often come as crucial aspect of our lives and a focus of close considerations since they often are considered the inner sources which drive our actions and behaviors and vastly define who we are. Meanwhile, the deferred dreams have great impact on the personality and affects one's attitudes and perceptions in many different ways. Just as there is a diversity of dream, the experiences related to its deferral are both widely diverse and truly unique, as it may be seen in the characters of the “Fences” by August Wilson. This essay thereby aims to analyze the dreams of Troy, Cory, and Rose, in relation to the rich metaphors of Langston Hughes in his “Montage of A Dream Deferred”.
According to of Langston Hughes, the unrealized dreams encounter different fates: dry up, fester, stink, crust, explodeThe metaphors which the author used revitalize and visualize the dream, endowing it with certain qualities and emphasizing on the differences in experience which the one may overcome while burying one's dream. Thereby it may be claimed that Troy's dream was stinking “like rotten meat” (Hughes), Rose's one - sagged “like a heavy load” (Hughes), while Cory's dream exploded. Troy's deferred dream is stinking because the Troy's failure in realizing his own dream hinders and disables the others, especially Cory, to make their dreams come true, thus spreading the general disbelief that, like a stink, tries to occupy the others. However, Cory is far more enthusiastic person that his father, since the deferral of his dream to become a football player serves him as a fuel and leads to the great outburst of energy and fury, directed towards his father, who factually contributed to ruining Cory's dream itself. While the Troy’s and Cory's dreams are centered around themselves and their achievements, Rose puts all her wishes and hopes into the family: as she told herself, "I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreamsand I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and waited and prayed over it" (Wilson). However, her empathy and kindness didn’t pay back, gradually becoming a harder and harder burden to carry and, as Hughes says, sagged “like a heavy load” (Hughes). Thereby it can be stated that these characters skillfully represent the Hughes' metaphors, bringing them closer to greater apprehension of the readers.
Works Cited
Wilson, A. Fences. New York: Plume, 1986. Print.
Hughes, L. Montage of A Dream Deferred. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951.
Print.
