Research Paper on:
'Harlem' by Langston Hughes

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Deferred") in 1951. Using a series of questions, Hughes conveys to his readership the frustration and heartbreak inherent in being promised equality for close to a century, while the African  American reality is one of persecution and prejudice. The structure of the poem portrays metaphorically what has happened to the dream of equality. The opening line asks simply "What  happens to a dream deferred" (line 1). Hughes then asks "Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?"/ Or fester like a sore -- /And then run" (lines 2-5).  The "dream" referred to is, of course, the promise of equality, of full participation in American society as US citizens. Essentially, Hughes is asking what happens when people are perpetually  oppressed. Do their hopes and dreams dry up -- "like a raisin in the sun" -- and disappear? Or, do they fester "like a sore" (line 4)? Thrall (1960)  points out that a superficial reading of this poem focuses on this poems simplicity. It asks, and then provides a series of answers to the opening question. However, Thrall (1960)  also insists that a closer reading demonstrates the basic disunity of the lines, which are predicated on unresolved conflict. Five of the six answers to the opening question are, themselves,  questions rather than declarative sentences. Also Hansen (2002) points out that the tentative "maybe," which is part of this sole declarative sentence is far less emphatic -- "less truly  declarative" -- than the final line, which is also a question (p. 106). The result of this structure is that the poem is "out of joint" with its five questions  that strongly assert and its single assertion, which only tentatively suggests (Hansen, 2002). Therefore, we see questions that are answers and a "penultimate answer so tentative that it more resembles