Analytical Journal on the First Three Poems .
Each of the poems presented in this assignment give a varying account of a dream. The first of the poems, Langston Hughes" A Dream Differed, asks what happens to a dream that is deferred, or postponed. He wonders if a dream set aside for later Shrivels up in the sun like a raisin, rots like meat, or sugars over like candy. Mr. Hughes writes as though he is wondering what has happened to his dreams. He has set them aside for later and then has seemed to completely desert them. Often I find myself setting aside my goals because I am "to busy" or "to tired." My goals and dreams are often left behind for silly reasons. Never to be picked up again.
The second of the poems, Gwendolyn Brook's Kitchenette Building, differs from the first in that instead of setting aside her dreams, she refuses to have any. She believes that "rent," "feeding a wife" and "satisfying a man" are much more important (strong words) than having "dreams" a giddy (frivolous) word The two poems are similar in that they both postpone dreams; the first postpones pursuing dreams, but the second postpones having dreams. I can relate to the second poem. I often change my mind about careers because I know that I will be expected to be at home to raise my children and be a housewife. .
The third poem, Langston Hughes" Let America be America Again, gives a picture of unfulfilled dreams. Immigrants from all over the world dreamt "our basic dream" of a land that was free and wonderful, but when they came to the glorious land of America they were not free and it was not wonderful ("America was never America to me"). They had to live in slums and work amazingly long hours for hardly any pay. Mr. Hughes pleas "O, let America be America again--The land that never has been yet"; the land of dreams. This poem is like the others in that is deserting a dream, but unlike the others, the dream was unfulfilled because of deception, not because of any failings of their own or any other obligations they had to fulfill.