The poem, "A Dream Deferred," by Langston Hughes, accurately and descriptively portrays the attitudes of African American people during the mid 1900's. Hughes expresses the possible responses of African Americans to their dreams being deferred by means of metaphors and similes.
             The first thing the reader needs to do to understand this poem is find out what a dream deferred means. Deferred means to put something off or to postpone it. In this poem, Hughes asks the question, and then proceeds to attempt an answer for himself with more questions. The dreams of the blacks in the 1900's were things such as social, economic, and educational equality, basic civil rights. Unfortunately, the obstacle of racism stood in the way of achieving these goals. However, Hughes poem does not have to be limited to the dreams of African Americans, but any dreams of all people everywhere.
             In the first of Hughes' possible answers, he asks, "Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" The reader needs to think about what exactly raisins are: grapes that shrivel and dry out after a period of time in the sun. With this knowledge, the reader thinks about how to interpret the meaning of this simile. Hughes implies that the dream, like the grape, loses its juice, or its vitality...its life. Hughes suggests the dreams of the African Americans will, like the raisin, eventually dry up, and soon after, die if they are deferred.
             In presenting another outcome of deferring a dream, Hughes asks if the dream will "...fester like a sore-/And then run?" In this he uses a simile that illustrates a gruesome picture of a sore. The reader thinks of his/her own personal experience of sores. A sore builds up to such an extent that it eventually just breaks open, releasing puss. The festering, in essence, is the frustration that has been building up from the African Americans not being given a chance to succeed
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