Oppression is an unfortunate "sense of heaviness of the body or mind" according to its dictionary definition. It can be caused by the imposition of certain rules and regulations forced upon a particular group of people, as was the case in both "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)" by Langston Hughes, and "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar. In each of these poems, the narrator is an African American dealing with the oppression of their race and feelings of inequality brought upon by the white citizens. Similarly, in "London" by William Blake, the narrator, although not of different ethnic origin, is describing the oppression taking place in London in 1794, when the city was industrialized and class-based, and injustice and hypocrisy were prevalent. Whatever the cause of oppression may be, more than one option for coping with the circumstances is available. In reading each of these three poems, three very different approaches for dealing with the oppression described are explored. .
In "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)", the influential work of Langston Hughes written in 1951, the speaker dreams of civil rights, and equality. Although slavery was outlawed during the Civil War, nearly one hundred years before Hughes wrote this poem, blacks were still discriminated against by the whites simply because their skin was a different color. That feeling of oppression by the majority of the population sparked a fire in Hughes and pushed him to write this poem. The hopeful and somewhat angry tone of the poem makes it all the more powerful. The poem is about a dream, and what happens to that dream when not followed through with. The opening sentence is the question, "What happens to a dream deferred?"(1) and, line by line different results are explored. Hughes uses a series of different negative descriptions to depict what might happen to a dream put on hold. "Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?"(2-3).