In a superficial reading of Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" (later titled "Dream Deferred") one sees only its obvious simplicity. It asks, and provides a series of disturbing answers to, the question, "What happens to a dream deferred?" (line 1). A closer reading reveals the essential disunity of the poem. It is a ground of unresolved conflict. Various elements of its outer body, its form, contend with each other as well as with various elements of its inner body, its structure: that "sequence of IMAGES and ideas which unite to convey the meaning of the poem" (Thrall 473).
Five of the six answers to the opening question are interrogative rather than declarative sentences. However, due to its tentative "Maybe," the sole declarative sentence is far less potent--less truly declarative, one might say--than the final line, that final, forceful, emphatically italicized interrogative, which, in spite of the fact that it is merely one more in a series of questions, is the conclusive, though not the sole and exclusive, answer to the question posed in line 1. The result of all this is a poem so out of joint that its five questions strongly assert and its single assertion tentatively suggests.
In contrast, the poem's typography seems more logical--up to a point. The first and last lines, original question and final answer, begin at the left margin. The five intervening answers are indented, forming a longer stanza of four questions and a much shorter stanza of one declarative sentence. The former are so dramatic that the latter hardly seems to merit the emphasis it receives by being set off as a stanza by itself. .
Had Hughes allowed stanza divisions to complement rhyme scheme by making the last three lines into a single concluding stanza and dividing the seven-line stanza between lines 5 and 6, the resulting three stanzas would more clearly reflect the structure, the inner body, of the poem, which consists of three paired oppositions: "dry up" and "fester," "stink" and "sugar over," and "sag" and "explode.
Of Mice and Men Set in Soledad, California on a typical Western Ranch, we find George and Lennie. Of mice and men is a novel which shows the trials and troubles of true friendship. This novel, with all of its twists and turns is a great piece of American Literature. There are two main character...
Catherine II was also known as Catherine the great was one of the first leaders to really push the enlightenment movement. She used an absolute monarchy to get power, and to reform her country into an enlightened country. Catherine II was born Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-zerbston April 21...
In the account of David and Goliath, David was a very small man, with little to no fighting experience; going up against Goliath, a huge warmonger that was very adept at battle. ... The Little Steam Engine did basically the same thing, he had a huge task ahead of him, no one thought he could complete it, but he keeps telling himself over and over again "I think I can, I think I can" in essence praying to himself trying to get the job done, eventually completing his task to everyone's amazement. ...
An example is Dr Huges of the mathematics department, who is seen by a lot of students as a bad and boring teacher, so a lot of students placed in his class make up their mind before each lecture that it's going to be as usual, with such attitude I believe they will never understand him when he is teaching because they hardly listen to it. ...
"A tan is your skins natural and intended reaction when exposed to UV light, and is your skins natural defense against a sunburn." Indoor tanning promises and creates a beautiful, lasting, gorgeous tan in only a few sessions. However, misconceptions about the negatives of indoor tanning and it's eff...
Christmas The year's most celebrated holiday is celebrated on December 25th, both in homes and churches worldwide. The meaning for Christmas is to recognize Christ's birth, of which the exact date is not known. During the fourth century the Bishop of Rome set December 25th as Christ's bi...
Bear Bryant's role in this book is a hard nosed football coach in charge of coaching the Texas A&M Aggies. It's 1954 and Bryant just lost his job as Kentucky's head coach to a man who in his way of thinking betrayed him. Bryant takes his rag tag gang of players to a modest place called Junction, T...