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Langston Hughes "Harlem"

Classroom Response/Discussion

***Spell check and editing pending, lol.

The title intriques me when looking to the first line of the poem:

"What happens to a dream deferred?"

Harlem, taken literally, is of course a city, but the last line:

"Or does it explode"

Made me think perhaps that this is more related to the American Dream. The meaning deferred is to put off (procrastinate), and while plently have achieved what could be called The American Dream, the vast majority of America do not, thus the title American Dream. When huges talks about "Maybe it just sags like a heavy load", this could comment on the whole status of working-middle-upper class of America's economical structure. The working and middle class constantly struggle everyday to try and achieve what several upper class citizens already have, which in many views is the American Dream.

Although many struggle, few do actually rise above, thus the "or does it explode?". It may seem that "what happens to a dream deferred" can also refer to which humans take this dream and hold it as a goal, while others simply brush it aside as fantasy which, when ocassionaly indulged in, provides escapism from the harsh realities of life. Essentially, this poem sounds like a warning towards a possible future where the masses are trapped in endless escapism, endless dreaming; dreaming that if were utilized could be put towards the realities of life and even change reality. Or if not the masses, the concept of higher-ups controlling and contoring the people's dreaming, whom they unconsiously allow the deferrment so that their dreams can be fufilled without the people doing the actual work. This can be seen in the constant worship in fame and fourtune and celebrity and enetertainment. Many will spend hours watching movies, worshipping celebreties in gossip circles, secretly or not so secretly craving the live's they worship.

Yet by doing this, they put off their dreams, due to being caught in a comfrotable loop, a comfortable insanity. Perhaps this could be consumerism, but more related to the time this poem was written, this comfortable insanity could be complacency, or the acceptance of a comfortable future, because the complacent are afraid of a deviant action that could change the course of history. IE, Rosa Parks simply refrusing to get up from her seat in the back of a bus, or the political legislation that grinds and locks without arriving to much of closure or desicion. Either way, or whicever your interpet, this poem's subtle importance, underneath the either-way-which-way interpetations and figurative language, cannot and shouldn't be ignored.