Dream Deferred
Dream Deferred - context Summary
Published 1951
Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred" (published 1951 in Montage of a Dream Deferred) frames the African American experience by asking what happens when hopes are postponed. It lists vivid, bodily comparisons—drying, festering, stinking, sagging—to show consequences of prolonged frustration and neglect. The poem’s spare sequence of similes builds to a final, blunt question about explosion, implying sudden unrest or rupture as a possible outcome of deferred dreams.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
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