Dreams Langston Hughes

During a time of struggle and difficulty for African Americans, they found sanctuary in the different arts such as poetry, literature, and art. There was an explosion of African Americans writing about the discrimination they had to face, and among them was the novelist and poet Langston Hughes. His writing was heavily influenced by what was going around him and he painted a vibrant, insightful picture of African Americans unlike some other writers of this time. An example is one of his poems “Dreams”, which spoke of the importance of having dreams and aspirations.
The time in which this poem was written was a battlefield for African Americans. While it was stated in the United States Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (US 1776), they hardly had any of these “rights”. Almost 150 years later, slavery had come to an end, but the discrimination towards African Americans had not been terminated. All over the US, African Americans were treated differently than other …show more content…
A broken-winged bird cannot travel to where it wants to, which is how a person would be if they didn’t hope and aspire for more than they have. Dreams have no limitation, which is why they could be the only escape for African Americans. The discrimination they had faced caused them to be just as broken as a broken winged bird. All the social and judicial limits that were put in place pushed them into somewhat of a cage. Hughes writes this to try to encourage them to dream, so that they can escape the cage they’ve been put in, whether it’s psychological or actually physical. With dreams come aspirations and if you aspire to do something bad enough, then you will act upon it. In a way, he is encouraging and pushing them to change what has been set upon