essay

Dreams or goals are not just mere ideas thought up on a boring day. A dream is the epitome of ones intentions to better their lives. The American Dream is something that comes to mind when one thinks of a goal or a standard dream of the common man but it is in America that these dreams are often squandered and dashed to the floor. This proves odd to most, and it should. After all, is this not the land of opportunity? Is this country not the place where you can make a better life for you and your family? This may be the common presumption but this country has a vast history of keeping people down and making this, “American Dream” very difficult to achieve, but I digress. What America is lucky enough to have are people who are able to voice such frustrations into beautiful forms of art. People like, writer, Langston Hughes. Hughes was a writer who voiced the frustrations of an entire race because he was one of them and experienced much prejudice and hardship in his life. Out of all his works I chose his short but powerful poem entitled “Harlem” written in 1951 (Booth, pp. 592). I chose this poem for a few important reasons that had a rather large impact on me emotionally as well as mentally. When one reads the poem it has a rather dark and depressing tone to it. Each line in a way drives your heart and morale deeper into the ground until the very last line which gives you hope that your dream still has the possibility to come to fruition. The initial theme of this poem is one of determination. The dream of the reader goes through a lot of problems and obstacles before the last line where we learn that we can still do it! We can still accomplish our dreams despite our dreams being obliterated. There is a deeper meaning to this poem I only learned after delving into not only the timeframe that this poem was written but into the personal history and other works of the writer himself. The deeper meaning is one of prejudice and a reflection of a time where a race of people was treated less than human. The true theme to this poem is the reflection of a time when African Americans were still not treated as equals to whites. The pain is seen when you delve deeper into not only the poem but into other works and the life of Langston Hughes.