Although Langston Hughes' poem “A Dream Deferred” may seem small and basic at first glance, there are many hidden meanings significant to the important meaning of the poem. First, what you may notice initially is the strange format of the poem. One line essentially asks the question, “what happens to a dream deferred?” and the lines below, all indented, offer some possible explanations. Finally, this poem closes with a final possible answer in italics to the question of whether the deferred dream “explodes.” When offering possible explanations, Hughes uses similes in describing all of his explanations except the last one. All the similarities provided also compare the explanation of what happens in a dream postponed to food. This is done because activities such as cooking and eating are part of an everyday experience. Ultimately, Hughes' goal here is to help the reader understand that staying on track with their dreams is as essential to life as cooking or eating. Just like if people don't eat, failing to follow your dreams will make your life unfulfilling. In short, Hughes' goal in this poem is to make his readers understand the importance of keeping their dreams alive and not abandoning them. In fact, Hughes' poem is commonly associated with Harlem as the dream for Harlem was going well until the Great Depression, when chaos ensued and people forgot what the dream for Harlem had been. Hughes uses this poem as a wake-up call to warn the people of Harlem (and even people in general) that if they continue to delay their dreams, their quality of life will worsen and there will never be any satisfaction. Whoever speaks of this poem appears as if he were an intelligent professor who challenges his...... middle of paper ......how beautiful I am and shame on you”. On the other hand, “A Dream Deferred” seems dark and depressing as it discusses the negative outcomes of what happens to a dream deferred. Rather than there being something to look forward to, Hughes offers the possibility of something happening that most people would like to put off, like something disgusting or an explosion. It can be argued that in these particular poems the failure of one event led to the next. When "I Too" was written in 1945, Hughes believed that a day would soon come when race would no longer matter as it once did at the time he published this poem. However, when Hughes noticed how racial equality had not improved (and in many cases was getting worse), he wrote “A Dream Deferred” in 1951 to reflect how the goal of racial equality (among other things) had been forgotten and neglected.