Tyler Kiser
3-14-13
Word Choice and Context
Mrs. Reagles 5th Hour
Dreams
Dreams, dreams, dreams. “Dreams”
by Langston Hughes is a glum poem. It describes in vibrant words why you always
need to have dreams even if you doubt they will come true. In the text it also
describes why the world needs dreams because if we didn’t everything would be
boring or “…if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird.” If “Dreams” wouldn’t
have contained the juicy figurative language it would be dull and boring, just
like the world without dreams.
Throughout “Dreams” there is
one type of figurative language that sets the tone for this part of the poem
and it is a metaphor. The first metaphor states “Hold fast to dreams/ for if
dreams die/ life is a broken-winged bird/ that cannot fly.” This compares dead
dreams to life as a broken-winged bird. It tells us that when dreams die off
life compares to a broken-winged bird that can’t fly. Which means that when
dreams die off life doesn’t move forward with new ideas, but stops advancing
and progressing.
The second metaphor of “Dreams”
is “Hold fast to dreams/ for when dreams go/ life is a barren field/ frozen with snow.” This time the
second metaphor in “Dreams” compares life without dreams to a barren field with
frozen snow instead of a broken-winged bird. The meaning of this metaphor is
that when dreams stop life freezes up and doesn’t progress with new ideas, but
instead the happiness in the world dies away.
The tone in “Dreams” makes me
feel sad and glum because of the way he uses his two metaphors in the poem. It
adds a sad tone because of how he compares life without dreams to a
broken-winged bird or a barren field frozen with snow. I think he compared life
without dreams to those two things because he wants people to know how sad and dreadful
life without dreams would be.
I believe that Langston
Hughes wrote this poem to emphasize his point of not giving up on dreams and to
not stop dreaming. He wants this because
he didn’t have an easy life when his parents separated and he had to live with
his mom’s mother. It got even worse when his grandma died and he had to move to
live with family, live with friends, and even live with James and Mary Reed. In
the end when times were tough he would read his books and dreamed that “…when people
suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did
in Kansas".[IA1]
Overall Langston Hughes wants
us to dream and come up with new ideas because he knows when people do that the
world becomes flourished with happiness, not broken-winged birds. Also he uses
figurative language to make the poem sink in even more than without metaphors
and ripe words. In the end when Langston Hughes wrote “Dreams” if he wouldn’t
have used juicy word choice, and figurative language, this poem would be dull
and boring just like the world would be without dreams.
[IA1]His
life inspired him to write this poem, to keep people dreaming when times were
tough, and to not give up on dreams like he didn’t.
