Dream Thieves

Dream-Thieves


Readers would not imagine it, but several things happened in Langston Hughes’s 11-line poem “Harlem,” which was written in 1951. In “Harlem,” the author formally implies the many ways African American dreams can be deferred. In our American culture, 1951 was a year which still involved much segregation, so all the dreams of the Harlem Society could not become reality. Langston asks the readers to find the relationship of dreams that are being postponed and why.
To begin with, the very first line of the poem states: “What happens to a dream deferred?”(Line 1) well it is obvious that the author might be substituting characteristics of irony, because the first line should not have been a question. The line simply should have been a statement; dreams are being deferred, if Harlem does not like it, then tough! The dreams were not being put off by the dream-seekers; they were clearly being automatically removed from African Americans as if the...