In the poem, "Harlem," the use of similes gives us the essence of what a dream deferred looks like. The first encounter with a simile, a very famous comparison to a dream deferred, is the line, "Does it (the dream) dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" (lines 2-3). This shows that the dream dries up when it is put off too long, and could be a reference to the dream shifting to something different entirely (grape to a raisin) or that it just runs out of life. The poem gives us vivid imagery through simile by making an indirect comparison to a grape. A grape would represent something full of life, whereas the raisin shows something that is drained, however not useless. The raisin does not necessarily mean that the dream completely dies, but that its purpose has shifted. So the dream is not completely lost, but rather it has changed. The effect of the simile gives us an image to relate a dream deferred to, hence allowing for a better understanding of what Langston Hughes was trying to communicate by asking the question "What happens to a dream deferred?" (line 1). Through the use of similes and symbolism he portrays a dominantly sad outcome for what happens to that dream.
In the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, there is a strong allusion to past events that the narrator is mentioning in this poem to her deceased father. In lines 57-60, the narrator says "I was ten when they buried you/ At twenty I tried to die/ and get back, back, back to you/ I thought even the bones would do." This allusion is to a specific past that she and her father had that contains underlying emotions not fully expressed in the poem. We can only see that she is bitter about her father's death and still holding on to him (however, the end of the poem is her "release"). Her bitterness is towards those who have buried her father. Later we learn that "the villagers never liked [him]/ they are dancing and stamping on [him]" (lines 77-78). This is because of her father's highly racist past that seems to plague her throughout her life. Some earlier lines also make known her own racial bitterness: "I began to talk like a Jew/ I think I may well be a Jew" (lines 34-35). This allusion allows for a very emotional story to unfold as the poem reads on. If it were just the narrator speaking about her father's death and racism, the story would be out right bland. With the allusion, however, the story is gripping and keeps an element of mystery about the poem. We do not know what the father's full story, we just know that he was obviously a very racist man. He could have been a Nazi soldier or just a common racist man. The narrator alludes to something in the second to last line, "They always knew it was you," which makes it seem like he performed a terrible act. We can suspect some of things that he might have done, but that just adds mystery to the story through creating a shady character. Plath effectively created a poem that tells a story without giving away all of the details through the use of allusion.
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Your analysis of the "raisin in the sun" in Hughes' poem does make sense, but then again, Hughes' questions are mostly rhetorical. A raisin is something you can eat, but what happens if you put a raisin out in the sun? It just gets drier and you probably wouldn't want to eat it anymore because it's too dry to be edible. What I thought about this line is that a dream deferred won't necessarily dry up like a raisin in the sun- a dream will not just wither away and die that easily. Hughes' rhetorical questions and the images that those questions paints help makes the final line of his poem much more dramatic and gives it more weight, because to Hughes, that's what'll happen to a dream deferred.
ReplyDeleteI think you're focusing too much on the Nazi/Jew relationship in Plath's poem. The relationship between the speaker and the father is liken to the Nazi/Jew relationship, which sheds light on the father/daughter relationship- it's not that the daughter is bitter towards the people who have buried her father, she's actually angry that she didn't get to kill her father and that he died before she was ready to let him go. I'm not sure that this poem was about racism at all...but I guess you could interpret it that way. When I read the poem, I thought that the Nazi-Jew relationship was Plath's way to emphasise the relationship between the speaker and her father; the speaker felt that she could never have father-daughter relationship because somehow, her father and her were like two people of completely different race. It appears that maybe the speaker viewed the failed relationship was all her father's fault, resulting in her comparing him to a Nazi who literally sent her (a "Jew") to one of the death camps. It was his fault that they didn't have a good father-daughter relationship and for the speaker, she saw herself as a Jewish prisoner under the unrelenting and uncompassionate watch of a Nazi officer.
Although your analysis of "Harlem" is good, I disagree with some the points you have made. I thought the rhetorical questions showed the different paths that the deferred dreams can follow. I thought the poem was just to give direction about the path deferred dreams and it allowed to the reader to determine what actually happens to the deferred dreams.
ReplyDeleteAlthough your analysis of "Daddy" is good, I disagree with some the points you have made again. I thought that the Nazi/Jew relationship was an extended metaphor that described the relationship that they had. I thought that she feared him, but she has trouble letting go of him as she is sad that he died.
Your analysis of "Harlem" was good, but I disagree with the idea of deference of the dream changing the purpose. When a grape turns into a raisin, the purpose of the fruit remains the same just as a dream remains something thought about unconsciously. The dream may shift to something else or it may not apply to the person's life anymore once it has been deferred. The draining of the grape is also significant as the dream may have lost some of its grandeur, it may have shrunk or simplified to make it more realistic. The drainage from grape to raisin also signifies something going back to its original form in a cyclical fashion. The raisin may represent the dream being pushed to the future because it is not suitable for the present, but by the time the dream comes up again the present will have become the past.
ReplyDeleteIn Plath's "Daddy" I am not sure she alluded to as much as you said she did. She was not really hinting at a lot stuff, it was fairly clear. Instead of the father/daughter relationship, I interpreted the poem as saying that the daughter had a rought relationship with her tyrannical father who died when she was young, but she later went on to marry someone who was just like him and then she killed him. The Nazi/Jew relationship is significant, but not as significant as the father/daughter and husband/wife relationships which can be used interchangeably.
The grape-raisin comparison you gave is different to what I thought it was, which gives the poem a deeper more interesting level. However, I don't think the dream really changes, it's still there, but he just forgets about it because he knows it probably won't come true.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with the part you said about Plath's father being racist. It was just a comparison to the way that a German Nazi treated a Jew with the way her father treated her. She wasn't mad that her father was racist, but rather that she wants the reader to get a feeling of how she was treated.
You give a very good point about Hughes's "Harmlem". Dreams can be like a grape full of life but can shrivel when we all forget about it or put it off. Although, Hughes was trying to say that deferred dreams becomes useless and loses its value. A raisin is already something dry and putting it out in the sun makes it more inedible or as to say it has lost its touch. This simile is very powerful because there are different ways we all conceive the meaning of this.
ReplyDeleteIt did not hit me that Plath's father was racist. Possibly, Plath used that analogy to describe the harsh and painful emotions she had to go through but it may not necessarily mean that her father was supporter of racism. You are right about how Plath uses so many phrases to bring up a sense of mystery. It seems like she misses her father but hates him at the same time. I really want to know what the true story is about the father but I guess Plath likes to keep us hanging.
In response to Jenny's comment, I fully agree with her about the dreams concept. I enjoyed the interpretation of the raisin. Since a raisin is already dried up, it would not take much more time for it to become completely dry up. This specific concept also deals with the connection to dreams. If someone holds off their dreams then they can essentially become "dried up". Hughes is trying to portray the idea that dreams are more in depth than we usually think of. The last line is an extremely significant statement that essentially leaves the reader thinking about their own personal dreams.
ReplyDeleteWith "Daddy" I never thought about the father being racist. After this realization I was able to see the connection to the Nazi's. The author tries to relate her "pain" to the internment camps which is no way in the same type of emotion she went through. I understand that she had felt a lot of powerful emotions that connected to her father, but the comparison to that era does not fully relate. Overall the author was trying to convey her experiences through the severe pain of others.
Although you do provide some good insight and points, I do not agree with everything. I like how you do explain how a raisin resembles a drained ripe as compared to a deferred dream since it may slowly vanish but the simile itself is only a rhetorical question the author throws out. However, I do not agree with a dream being changed, I think that is just put on hold as the poem refers (deferred), the author thus expresses anger and frustration implying that an individual must either take action to make the dream possible or just stand still as the dream will slowly vanish. I also liked how you analyzed "Daddy" but think that you may of misinterpreted some of its meaning. Plath is not bitter against the barriers of her father but of her father himself and her husband since they have caused great misery in her life, as she compares them to a Nazi, the devil, vampires and so on.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted the drying of the raisin in the sun a different way. You talk about a grape becoming a raisin and link that to the dream becoming something different. However, in the poem, no grape is mentioned. Hughes talks about a raisin left out in the sun to dry up and essentially die. I took that to mean that the dream was neglected and allowed do dry up and die away.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your ideas concerning Daddy. I thought the father may have been racist as well. While it was obvious that he was not a nazi, the fact that she is comparing him to one suggests that he may have been cruel to certain people. It is interesting that you mentioned that Sylvia is bitter about her fathers death. I had not picked up on that. Maybe that could mean that he wasn't really a cruel person, but she is just bitter towards his memory because she feels abandoned.