A "Dream Deferred" in "Harlem"
             As a child growing up everyone seems to have the ideal life set in their mind. You know what you want to do with your life; you know everything there is to know. Or do you? Dreams start out simple and later grow complex. At a young age you look up to people in your life and want to be just like them and want to marry fabulous people with an ideal type set in your mind. You grow up and come to realize that things aren't as easy as you expected them to be. In 1951 Langston Hughes asks us "What happens to a dream deferred"? or to put a whole new spin on things what happens to a "Dream Deferred" when your in "Harlem"? Langston Hughes wrote one poem and it was titled two different titles throughout his life, each title gives the poem a profoundly different reading.
             Reading this poem with the title "Dream Deferred" makes it universal, anyone can relate to it. The majority of the world can relate to having a dream deferred in their life, and this poem is away for them to relate. The questions Hughes is asking the reader make them think about their dreams they had and what happened to them, "Does [the dream] stink like rotten meant?"(ln. 6)
             As the reader encounters the strophe of questions they reflect back on their dreams and do a type of self analysis almost. Reading "Dream Deferred" is a self exploring, thought provoking poem about the past and future for you.
             On the other hand if the poem is read with the title "Harlem" people automatically attach stereotypes to the name such as poverty and label it a black neighborhood where nothing good will come out of it. With the title "Harlem" the first line, "What happens to a dream deferred?" Has so much more meaning you can interpret dream to be the dream of the African Americans in general, a personal dream, the
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