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Similes In Ted Hughes By Langston Hughes

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In the next part of the poem, Hughes answers this basic question about deferred dreams with a series of similes written as questions. The first simile asks if a deferred dream dries up “like a raisin in the sun” (3). The image of the dried and wrinkled raisin contrasts with the fat, juicy grape the dream once was. The images created by the following three similes are worse. Does the deferred dream “fester like a sore— / And then run” (4–5) or “stink like rotten meat” (6) or “crust and sugar over— / like a syrupy sweet” (7–8)? The images in these similes seem to say that if a dream is postponed, it rots or spoils or infects the dreamer. In each of the questions, the word choice is casual and dark: “dry up,” “fester,” and “stink”
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