Can you count how many times you have used a simile to convince your parents to get you something? For example, “Please buy me this game! It’s as important as paying your bills!” Merriam-Webster defines simile as a phrase that uses the words like or as to describe someone or something by comparing it with someone or something else that is similar. There are many famous poems that use similes as a poetic device. The poet 's’ background influences their writing. “A Red, Red, Rose” by Robert Burns, “Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda, and “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes are three examples of poems which use similes to help develop their theme. Langston Hughes is a famous Scottish poet and lyricist. He is seen as the national poet of Scotland. …show more content…
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and a columnist. Hughes spent most of his childhood with his grandmother, who filled his imagination with stories of the past. The tradition of storytelling inspired Hughes to write. Additionally, he was influenced by American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. “A Dream Deferred” is a poem based around the question, “What would happen if dreams were postponed?” The similes used in this poem are indirect comparisons of the theme, which is dreams, hopes, and plans. “It dries up like a raisin in the sun.” Dreams can become dry in a matter of time if you don’t take action when given the opportunity. Leaving your dreams untouched for too long can result in them to having little chance of occurring. “It festers like a sore.” Things fester when they aren’t healing or aren’t being cared for properly. The speaker is saying that a deferred dream won’t heal or go away. “It stinks like rotten meat.” The sense of smell reminds us to do something about it, like throw the rotten meat away. Hughes makes an interesting distinction between ignoring dreams and getting rid of them altogether. “It sags like a heavy load.” The heavy load can refer to all the thoughts on the speaker’s mind. The load is being carried with great effort and will take hard work to reach the destination, just like a dream. These similes helped readers to understand the theme more as it gave examples that everyone could