Essay About Sensory Imagery And Choice Of Diction

Harlem Case
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“Harlem”
In life everyone has dreams and goals. We all have certain expectations of how
we would like to live our lives to be. We all strive to reach a certain level of self
actualization and acceptance. So it can be said we all live a dream. Dreams are the
driving force of the American people. There are more struggles for different ethnic
groups than others especially in the 1950s. In his poem “Harlem”, later change to
“Dream Deferred”. Hughes expresses his outlook on dreams. Using a strong use of
sensory imagery and diction in the poem during a difficult time in the world.
During this time whites were considered inferior so it would have been difficult for
dreams to come to life or for people to have any hope. Langston Hughes is very
expressive on how he feels about dreams as you can read and feel the tone of the
poem. The message that the poem gives off is universal and could be understood by
many. In the first line he asks does a dream deferred dry up like a raisin in the sun.
Stating if you forget about it will dry up. Hughes asks the reader to think by asking the
question what happens to a dream deferred? He asks this question as an introduction to
reactions of people whose dreams dont come true. The image he uses in the first line is
the raisin, he draws a parallel between raisin losing juices drying in the sun to dreams
losing its importance after time. The dried raisin being old, lifeless suggesting the dream
has been forgotten. The second example is the crusted syrup on line 6 being hard and
dried up again dream has no life. Also being bitter sweet using syrup as a example as
undesirable on surface but sweet in middle.
The choice of diction really sets off the imagery when Hughes talks about it being
like “rotten meat” being old and smelly suggest that the dream is dying out. It also
implies that the dream is now worthless a thing of the past. Hughes utilizes imagery to
draw the reader into the poem. The imagery progresses throughout the poem from
visual