Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
rhetorical question: a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring/expecting and answer.
All of the similes and metaphors in this poem are rhetorical questions. They don't need a direct answer, they just simply are asked to get our minds to think more. And boy did my mind think. I think this poem is trying to get one to think about the success of a dream. What happens when you defer a dream? and then it goes on and on about what could possibly happen. What struck me though was the very last line, "or does it explode?" (Hughes). I almost wish there was an ellipsis. I feel like that is how I said it in my head when I was reading it. The fact that it is all by itself, has no other negating second line, and is italicized tells me that this rhetorical question is different from all the rest. The rhetorical questions allow the reader to add their own interpretations into the actually question, I think, of what happens when a dream is deferred.
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