This study will provide a critical analysis of the work of Langston Hughes with respect to his views on those negative forces (racism, conformity, fear) which prevent an individual (black or white) from living life freely and creatively. Although Hughes is usually seen as a "black writer" concerned with "black problems," this study will consider him as a "human writer" writing about "human problems," including, of course, problems such as racism which damage both blacks and whites.
In Hughes's poem "Dream Deferred," the theme is the destructive impact of racism on blacks and their dreams of fulfillment in the world, although the work can certainly be applied to any person whose dreams are shattered. The people about whom Hughes writes are not able to fulfill their dreams, are not even able to try to fulfill them. Again, although Hughes is indeed writing specifically about blacks, the poem's theme can be applied to anyone who has had his or her "dream deferred" in any way or who empathizes with those who have. The dreams deferred are, says Hughes, like "raisin[s] in the sun."
The theme deals not only with sadness but the outrage which comes from the knowledge that this massive deferring of dreams of a great bulk of an entire race of people does not have to happen and did not have to happen. There is an implied warning in the last line, "Or does it explode?" (Hughes "Dream" 943).
Of course, the poem cannot be separated from Hughes' views on racism, nor from his own role as spokesman for blacks:
From the start of his career, when he assumed the mantle of poet of his people, Langston Hughes was the Dream Keeper, who urged others to "Hold fast to dreams"; "I Dream a World,: an aria from Troubled Island, had become the amen-piece at his lectures and readings (Rampersad 152).
Nevertheless, again, the mark of a truly great writer is that his work can be removed from its specific context and applied universally. When Hughe...