What's your Dream?

In this poem, Harlem, Hughes asks questions that make the readers think about their dreams in life; however, his questions are quite obvious to the reader because these are the things that people face in life and that chose to go through by accepting a challenge to pursue a dream.

By reading this poem over and over, I was able to read the poem carefully and find the tone of voice that is being used to express each meaning. What I realized about the interpretation of this poem is that it follows a pattern in which the tone is being expressed in five different ways. This pattern starts off with the author's thoughts in line one, then it switches from a negative to a more positive tone in lines two through eight, then it goes back to a negative tone in lines nine through ten and ends with another thought of mind to which the readers have to think about.

As for the effect, the tone of this poem follows the effect towards the choice of words that Hughes uses to describe each tone of voice that is being made. For example, in line two, Hughes mentions "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Knowing this, I was able to break down one of the meanings of the words from this line and noticed that raisin can be used as a simile which describes two different things but ends up relating by saying a raisin is like a person. When we think of the word raisin we usually describe how dry it is and how it has no more value because its worn out. Referring back to Hughes simile of a raisin to a person, we can see the similarities to where the person is seen as the raisin. This can be caused because of working to hard in the sun which causes one to wear out because all you do all day is work, work, and work and eventually lose value towards your strength and own self.

By comparing the similes to the overall meaning of the poem, Hughes describes in line three two different terms with different meanings. This simile in line three, "fester and sore" tries to send a message that a person can actually get frustrated over their dream and end up having to deal with a sort of pain. Due to this pain, a person can end up running away. In the next line, we see that "stink and rotten meat" are being compared towards one another. From this information we can describe that "stink and rotten meat" can lose interest in a dream because the irritation of an old dream ends up being thrown away.

Overall, Hughes helps us think about our dreams in life by using different similes. These similes were really effective to the reader because thinking about each dreams meaning helps us understand that dreams face conflicts and difficult situations in life. With this being said, what is your dream?