Lagnston Hughes Poem Dreams - 1302 Words

Langston Hughes’ poem â€Å"Dreams† discusses the value of having goals and aspirations. The poem is relatively short and uses metaphors to express such utter importance of dreams. In the first stanza Hughes’ implies that a life without dreams is useless and may as well not even exist. The whole of a bird’s existence is to be able to use its’ wings to fly, just like a human’s life only has a purpose to exist if there are dreams to give it meaning. The second stanza contains another metaphor about comparing having no dreams to living an empty life. A field with nothing but snow, has no use in life except to just be there. The authors use of metaphors comparing lifeless nature to a life without dreams is extremely effective in getting the†¦show more content†¦Like his poem, â€Å"Dreams† conveys, he never let those dreams go, because he knew that without any aspirations life would have no purpose. Langston Hughes choice o f words, organization, and length for the poem may directly reflect his feelings towards the hopeless path he saw the world around him traveling on. A reviewer for â€Å"Black World,† stated in 1970 that, â€Å"He used his poetry and prose to illustrate that ‘there is no lack within the Negro people of beauty, strength, and power,’ and he chose to do so on their own level, on their own terms (Poetry Foundation).† The separation of the poem into two different stanzas shows the difference in life when dreams are completely gone and when they still have hope of resurfacing. It also gives the audience a chance to experience the poem in different ways. In the first stanza, the speaker compares life to â€Å"a broken-winged bird that cannot fly† (3-4) to demonstrate that if there are no dreams to give a person a reason to get up and move to make a better life not only for themselves, but everyone then there is no use in even living. On the other hand, the second stanza he compares life to â€Å"a barren field frozen with snow† (7-8) to show that once a person reaches that point, there will be very little chance of developing new dreams. The rhyme scheme that the poet uses is