Langston Hughes Poems
Life is not just a perfect picture with all puzzles joining together at once. One time it opens you the door of paradise, but other one throws you to the chasm of disappointment and loneliness. If people learn to find joy in every day and keep on going in spite of any life troubles, they will reach beautiful destination and create their own happiness. Only the most courageous ones, who are ready to follow their dreams and run the risk, will definitely choose the quickest and easiest path in the fascinating life journey.
Dreams of course can not magically transform life into a fairly tale. However, thanks to dreams people are able to find a purpose of their existence and even conquer their fears. They set goals, chase their ambitions, win new summits and just enjoy every simple moment to the full. People’s ability to dream, in fact, not only gives moral support in an hour of sorrow but helps to believe in better future, achieve their cherished goals and even overcome hardships and offences. On the contrary, those who do not have lifelong dreams are just wandering about an entangled maze without any chances to find a desired exit. The thing is, dreams actually motivate people to work hard, remain determined after any failure and at the same time is the best way to become successful. Do not miss a chance to pursue your dream and simply believe in those wishes your heart makes.
The topic of dreams and their significant role in people’s life is clearly presented in Langston Hughes poems. The author suggests an opinion that dreams really make life more colourful, giving it meaning and purpose. Moreover, he attempts to depict the situation when human beings forget to follow their dreams. Let’s now analyze these interesting ideas in details, taking into consideration two well-known Hughes’ poems Harlem and Dreams.
In Dreams, the writer turns readers’ attention to the great importance of dreams and tries to persuade everybody to never let them die. Using figurative language, he tries to show that with the help of dreams people are able to believe in themselves, make all their wishes come true and also accomplish the most difficult plans. However, without dreams life is just a barren where nothing could grow or bloom (Cooper 34). Thus, Hughes succeeded in creating really expressive contrast of beautiful and interesting life with dreams and miserable and senseless life without dreams.
The poem is exceedingly short and is written in free verse. The writer presented only two stanzas and used a lot of stylistic devices in order to create strong and significant mood in his poem. In the first stanza, the speaker calls “to hold fast to dreams” because they can easily die one day (Hughes 45). This personification means that people should never let their dreams and hopes give up. Here one can also find an example of metaphor. Hughes compares a life without dreams to “a broken-winged bird” that is incapable of flying (Hughes 45). The same way as bird’s life without its wings has any purpose at all, any man without dreams will not be fully satisfied in this cruel world.
The image of downtrodden and hobbled bird is in fact the physical symbol of bias and different violations of rights that African Americans had to experience during Hughes’s time. The writer, however, is hundred percent sure that dreams do not have any physical limitations. They are simply irreplaceable in supplying comfort, consolation and hope that all together will keep up people’s faith in better life.
The second stanza also contains a powerful metaphor. Hughes calls a life without dreams just a “barren field frozen with snow” that fails to provide life to others (Hughes 45). He implicates that people’s life without dreams will only be empty, cold and fruitless existence. The one, who let their dreams go, will have a life frozen as a snow. So, the message of this fascinating poem is to stick tight to your dreams and chase them every possible moment. Life can be very hard at times but with dreams it will surely be easier to pace on its thorny path.
Dreams is very similar to another Hughes’ poem Harlem as they both have the same thematic content. Here readers can also observe the theme of special importance of dreams and cravings but in a more cynical way. The writer is trying to convince everyone that destroyed dreams will some day lead to a literal or psychological explosion (Rampersad 67).
There are moments in life when people lose confidence and refuse to work hard to realize their cherished dreams. Langston Hughes offers several feasible scenarios where dreamers postpone their dreams and skillfully depicts some negative and noxious effects of such rush action. Harlem consists of eleven short lines in four stanzas and has the structure of rhetoric. The poem just asks and gives a bunch of alarming answers to the eternal question of “what happens to a dream deferred?” (Hughes 83).
The central theme of the poem is an evident limitation of the American dream for African Americans. Being a black poet in America, Hughes clearly understood all the challenges and dismay African Americans were facing in those terrible years. The “dream deferred” was their destroyed and disappointed dream of freedom, equality, self-respect and opportunities to achieve a success in still racially segregated America (Walker 52). The writer did not describe some particular vain dream but strived to show general hostile and oppressive environment that prevented African Americans from obtaining great things in their lives.
At first, postponed dream is compared to “a raisin in the sun” (Hughes 83). The dream itself looks like a juicy and fresh grape but if desolate, it will surely dry up and become completely useless. Secondly, the poet used the image of a festering sore that showed a feeling of pain and infection. In other words, unfulfilled dreams resemble grievous injury that can even infect and poison people’s mind. The next line “Does it stink like rotten meat” is employed to magnify the sense of disgust (Hughes 83).
Finally, the deferred dream may result in acute disappointment and will even reach a physical state of decline and moral lapse. Langston Hughes sums up that neglected dreams could not just disappear and can end in some social damages or destructive outcomes. The writer frankly sympathized with African Americans who found themselves entangled in the meshes of slavery. That’s why he attempted to demonstrate that people could easily change from obedient martyrs into violent rebels if not permitted to chase their God-given rights.
So, Hughes succeeded in proving the great importance of following dreams and consummately depicted hopes and aspiration of all African American’s population in particular.
Works Cited
Cooper, Floyd. Coming Home: From the Life of Langston Hughes. New York: Philomel Books, 1994. Print.
Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Knoph, 1994. Print.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.
Walker, Alice. Langston Hughes, American Poet. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Print.
