When I read "A Dream Deferred" I think of dreams and ideals as being tangible entities. Self. I think of them as having life of their own - being born, growing, thriving, coming to fruition, aging, changing and then finally, dying. As I ponder this cycle, and the cycle of life, I imagine these alive, living, dreams as pieces of self and I consider the process of decay. As pieces of self die and decay they must either be slacked away to protect the living, thriving, flesh or be rescued from that which destroys its life. I imagine the difficulty in deciding - cut away the rotting flesh or nurture it, even as it may continue to die. I think even more of the complexity of emotion - frustration, anger, remorse, and sense of loss - that would be tied to the removal of the choice to cut away or nurture. What if there is no option, but only the command that dreams will die, even before they are born? How could one be whole? How could one touch the very thing within themselves that makes their life one of living and experience, if dreams are taken before they can be conceived?
More, if dreams are tangible things and they exist as a facet of life, and in a infinite multitude of variation, and when they die and / or are not recognized the weight of the bitter load of that death is exhausting, rotten, sickly and grotesque, then what IS the action (or reaction) to such loss? It troubles me that in this particular poem Hughes leaves us stirring with only an inkling of a response. He asks, "Or does it explode?" And I wonder, if this is his way of forcing a reaction from the reader, or if he has lost his nerve at this point in the poem? He threatens action, suggests a violent response, but gives us nothing in the way of understanding the potential mechanisms of such a response or the consequences of violent reaction. Because of this, this poem leaves me thoughful, but generally unsatisfied and incomplete.
Steph
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The actual realization of what a dream is and how it lives or dies brings a certain kind of strength to reading the poem. you do a good job of the uplink. nice
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Your language is very colorful your description of dreams in accordance with decay and death is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSteph, thank you for that interpretation, I honestly have never thought of this poem in terms of dreams being tangible things. I always read the dream as the desire for equality and justice and fair treatment. As I read your response, I felt a bit like I'd missed the mark, but not in a bad way, just in a way that made me say -- "Oh, yeah! It could be read that way too."
ReplyDeleteOf course, I've considered the dreams as just that -- dreams -- the things we think about and ponder and hope for, but never as tangible items. The idea of them "exploding" at the end makes perfect sense to me in the realm of dreams being something we hold on to and desire and think about. It would be almost necessary for them to explode for us to realize that we've been bottling them up/in for so long. The exploding seems symbolic of our ability to realize the dreams we have been deferring for whatever reason.
It makes me wonder what this semester of school will push to the surface and what dreams will explode from me ☺.
This was such a great interpretation of the poem. I actually never thought about dreams as being seperate entities. This poem in particular is one of my favorites because of the message behind it, or at least what I think the message is--which is the death and decay of dreams. And during the time period many African Americas (and of course other marginalized groups) felt this way.
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