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'Harlem': A Dream In Harlem By Langston Hughes

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Jazz music filled the streets, people poured into speakeasies, the economy boomed and American spirits were high during the roaring twenties. The Harlem Renaissance played an essential part in making this decade a notable time. Due to the great migration caused by Jim Crow laws, Boll Weevils and industrial jobs available in the North, African Americans finally left their lives of endless debt and farming for a new opportunities in the North. Harlem allowed the opportunity for a new African American culture to be represented. This new culture allowed for African Americans to be able to achieve new dreams. Authors like Langston Hughes captured the spirit of Harlem in his works. Although, the Harlem Renaissance was a time of literary, artistic …show more content…

According to Hughes in the poem “Harlem”, Blacks postponing dreams could only have negative outcomes. “What happens to a dream deferred?... or does it explode?,” he describes along with a number of other dreadful possibilities that happen to unfulfilled dreams. The idea that society doesn 't want this new culture to be able to achieve their dreams, however, according to Hughes this was their time to achieve them is expressed in this piece. Even though society suppressed African Americans, society needed them to achieve these dreams. If African Americans did not achieve their dreams during the Harlem Renaissance we would not have many great celebrities we know today. Babe Ruth would not become a baseball legend, Louis Armstrong would not be one of the best musicians of the decade and Langston Hughes would not have been the inspiring writing he was. Without these African Americans who followed their dreams, like Hughes implied through disturbing imagery, society would have been extensively hurt. With the use of imagery, Hughes is able to get this idea across. In numerous negative outcomes, he directly states in vivid details all the horrendous things that will happen if these dreams are not achieved. This allows the reader to think of dreams as a physical object that needs to be tended to, like, as Hughes compares it to, a festering sore. In that case, along with Hughes’s many other examples, putting it off will only make it get worse. Undoubtedly, imagery successfully demonstrates the need for African Americans to achieve their

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The Harlem Renaissance was a period in American history, which occurred in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The cultural movement was an opportunity for African Americans to celebrate their heritage through intellectual and artistic works. Langston Hughes, a famous poet, was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. One notable piece of literature by Hughes is “Dream Deferred”. However, the discussion of African American culture isn’t limited to the 1920s.

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It was a period of expression in which they took pride in their culture, this sense of group identity formed a basis for later progress for blacks in the United States. The Harlem Renaissance took down previous racial stereotypes, as well as exemplified that African Americans had much to offer and contributed greatly to the creation of American culture. B) James Weldon Johnson’s excerpt argued that African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance were establishing themselves as active and important forces in society whom were also accomplishing great artistic achievements. Langston Hughes, a leading African American poet of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote literature about the pain and pride

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In Langston Hughes’s “Harlem” and Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird,” the use of metaphors shows the oppression and difficulties in African American people’s life. In Langston Hughes’s “Harlem” the dream deferred is a metaphor for African American people not being able to achieve their dreams. If a dream is deferred it is put off for a later time and Langston Hughes describes what he thinks happens to a dream when it is deferred. He states, “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?”(1-3).

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In “I hear America singing” by Langston Hughes we see the American dream depicted as the American Dream for Blacks in a time of segregation and

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The Harlem Renaissance began and thrives during the roaring twenties. It unveiled an incredible amount of black artistic and literary creativity. Harlem Renaissance writers and artists expressed pride in their African American culture through extraordinary performances. It was a time of great discovery, mostly in the arts, and gave provided Americans something else to focus on besides the current economical status. Many wonderful African American poets, authors, musicians, and artists emerged in that time period and are still highly regarded today.

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At this time, the dream was equality and being accepted as citizens of the United States. Hughes felt that this goal of liberty and quality for African Americans was very hard to reach or match. A poem that resembles this thought well is titled “Youth”, where Hughes writes, “We have tomorrow… Bright before us… Like a flame” (Hughes 39). This poem has a lot of analysis towards the American Dream.

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The shame wasn’t a cause for them to turn away from the love for their culture, it just made the proud of their deep black beautiful roots. The black artists of the Harlem Renaissance put a visual scene to the joy, pain, laughter, tears, and the ugly truth within this endearing culture. The literature of the Harlem Renaissance gave an intellectual opinion in American during in the turn of the 20th century. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance have had a profound impact on the American society today.

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The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic way during the 1920’s and the 30’s. Many African Americans who participated in this movement showed a different side of the “Negro Life,” and rejected the stereotypes that were forced on themselves. The Harlem Renaissance was full of artists, musicians, and writers who wrote about their thoughts, especially on discrimination towards blacks, such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance was an influential and exciting movement, and influenced others to fight for what they want and believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

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This viewpoint is very confident for the future and seems to allude to Hughes knowing that one day African Americans will be seen as equal to everyone else. Maya Angelou also has a well-known poem titled “Still I Rise” in which she talks about how even with everything going against her and all African Americans, they still overcome it all and stand strong. This poem is confident as well, but in a different way than Hughes’s poem. Hughes’s poem is confident that people will one day see him for who he is, but Angelou’s poem is confident because it accuses

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Everyone has dreams, but the thing is most people never accomplish them. Some people put off their dreams to the side because something more important than their dreams comes forth. They believe that is better to put their dreams to the side or give up on them and allow their dreams to fade in their minds. In “What happens to a dream deferred?” by Langston Hughes, the poet uses the title, tone, diction, and selection of detail, to express how people are affected by deferred dreams.

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