Harry Philips "Harlem’ simply asks, and provides a series of disturbing answer to the questions, “what happens to a dream deferred?” A closer reading reveals the essential disunity of the poem.The whole poem (Harlem) is built in the structure of rhetoric. The speaker of the poem is black poet. Black people were given the dreams of equity and equality. But these dreams never came true." I would have to agree with this review. Knowing Langston, he wrote a lot of African American literature. If you look at it from this perspective, you can understand why black people were treated unequaly. Langston writes how the dream is always thought of, but deferred, that is, to put off or disregard. A dream that was always dreamed of, but never came true. However this analysis does not pertain to the title. Why is the poem called "Harlem"? Harlem was a city during the Great Depression, and also a movement of African Americans trying to rise up, and it devastated black people. "When dream is postponed or differed or delayed, it brings frustration, it dries up like raisin in the sun but there is wet inside, likewise it stinks like rotten meat, it becomes fester like a sore and one day it will explode and cause larger social damages. The poem is in the form of a series of questions, a certain inhabitant of Harlem asks." The poem literally speaks for itself. At a first glance, it seems kind of odd. A dream, stinking like rotten meat? Letting it fester like a sore and then explode? "Harlem" is told by an African American as the speaker of the poem. The poem is as if it speaks from the mind of one of those African American's in the city of Harlem. At first, there may be connotations all over the place, but it seems more like denotations. As said before, the poem speaks for itself! What happens to a dream deferred, it is forgotten, and never to be remembered again. Philips summarizes the poem by saying that "Harlem" yields special insight into the African American condition during the respective time period.
Triplett, William "Recurring throughout, though, and usually at the most poignant moments, is Hughes's provocative- question "What happens to a dream deferred?" -- from his haunting poem on civil rights. But Hughes, who tended to view his own scars from racism with cool detachment instead of righteous anger, was more interested in people than in politics." William makes another point. Just like Philips, he believes that this poem has more racial meaning than political meaning. Of course, this was during the time when blacks were looked down upon in society. That first line of the poem has the most meaning than any other line. "What happens to a dream deferred?" I agree also with Triplett's view on "Harlem" because it is no debate, it obviously has no meaning what so ever to like a dream that a five year old child has, but to a life long dream of freedom and equality.
Leon Lewis "Harlem" operates around the crucial question of "What happens to a dream deferred?" and offers the unsettling suggestion that it can "dry up / like a raisin in the sun," or that it can "explode" into violence. This prophetic poem, written in 1951, is not only a perceptive assessment of the psychological impact of racist policies, but a statement of the fragility of a young person's dreams. Characteristically, Hughes sees the counter-possibilities that can preserve the dream until it is realized, offering in "Dream Boogie" the awakening of the dream into the "good morning" of a "boogie-woogie rumble." Most of these critics have been saying the same thing. This poem can be percieved in so many different ways, the first time I read it, I didn't even know it had anything to do with the Harlem Renaissance. These all relate back to the famed quote, "What happens to a dream deferred?". This goes back to the whole equality statement and the fact that African Americans were treated unfairly. Again, I agree with what Lewis is saying here. People thought of the idea of freedom as a dream diferred, but how Hughes gives it odd characteristics, such as drying up in the sun like a raisin, or that it can explode, he makes the dream and idea sound almost bad. The poem seems to have a meaning that it can never be achieved, so what does it do? Does it just disappear, or does it explode, like a wildfire spread of a radical idea.