Dream Deferred

"Dream Deferred"
Langston Hughes

First, I just want to connect to APUSH last year because I'm pretty sure we read this and a few others of Hughes in class.  As when I read it last year, I really liked it and its message.  I also want to answer the second question from the book because I like it and had forgotten that Langston Hughes was a black American.  I originally thought this poem just talked about a dream in life that is not acted upon.  However, when I learned a little of Hughes' background and the span of his lifetime, I understood this poem to be about the "deferred" dreams of black Americans before the Civil Rights Movement near the end of Hughes' life. I think this represents not just his dreams, but the dreams of all oppressed members of society at that time.  Rhetorically, I noticed the rhetorical questions, the three pauses between lines, and especially, the italicized line at the end of the poem.  The questions causes the reader to invent his own solution to the problem Hughes has presented.  He also utilizes different similes to ask "what happens to a dream deferred?"  I think the three pauses are also important because they give the reader a second to consider what he wrote.  I really enjoy the last line, "Or does it explode?," (Hughes) because it gives one final suggestion and possibly his favorite of the alternatives.  It is italicized, I think, because it is the most important line and offers his answer to the question posed in the beginning.