Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our "How to Read a Poem" section for a glossary of terms.
Dreams
We could talk about dreaming till the cows come home. We're all for it. But in this poem, our speaker seems to have noticed a disheartening trend – he's noticed that many people are deferring their dreams, and he's got something to say about it. As a way of reminding the world of how important dreams are, he offers a series of possible responses to the central question, "What happens when dreams are put on hold?" And these responses are kind of sobering.
- Line 1: Our speaker offers up a rhetorical question about dreams – that is, a question that does not have one answer.
- Lines 2-8 and 11: Our speaker answers his first rhetorical question about dreams with five other rhetorical questions.
- Lines 9-10: Our speaker offers one answer to his original question in the form of a declarative sentence.
Foodstuffs and Domestic Life
As he explores what happens when dreams are put on hold, our speaker uses a series of similes that compare the act of deferring dreams to that of raisins drying in the sun, meat rotting, sugary syrup crusting over, and heavy loads sagging. This imagery remind us of everyday, ordinary tasks and makes us feel like our speaker is arguing that dreams are as important and as necessary as eating, cooking, cleaning, or carrying something.
- Line 2-3: Our speaker uses simile (notice the word "like") to compare deferred dreams to a raisin drying in the sun.
- Line 4-5: Our speaker uses simile to compare deferred dreams to a festering, bleeding sore.
- Line 6: Our speaker uses simile to compare deferred dreams to rotten meat.
- Line 7-8: Our speaker uses simile to compare deferred dreams to sugary things that have crusted over.
- Line 9-10: Our speaker uses simile to compare deferred dreams to heavy loads that sag.
Violence and Oppression
Our speaker hints at an underbelly to the world of dreams. When dreams are ignored, our speaker argues that the consequences can be really bad (even dangerous). Because of the time in which this poem was written (the birth of the
Civil Rights Movement), we know that the act of pursuing one's dreams was an act that not everyone in America was allowed to do.
- Line 4: Our speaker uses the image of a festering sore as he considers the consequences of deferred dreams.
- Line 6: The image of rotten meat is not a pleasant one, and it's one that reminds our sense of smell of things from the past.
- Line 9-10: Again, our speaker harnesses the power of imagery as he wonders whether deferred dreams sag like a heavy load. This image makes us think of hard work and exhaustion. It also makes us think of someone who has to carry such a load all by himself/herself without anybody's help, something that doesn't seem fair.
- Line 11: Our speaker uses metaphor as he concludes this poem, wondering whether dreams "explode." The verb "explode" makes us think of bombs and fireworks and things that can no longer contain themselves.
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