Montage of a Dream Deferred is, in addition to being a statement about denied opportunities for African Americans, a rich portrayal of the places and personalities that make up the New York neighborhood of Harlem where Hughes lived. Recurring themes and phrases occur throughout the smaller poetic works that make up the book in fact, the book begins and ends with the same two lines: 'Good morning, daddy! / Ain't you heard?'

This is an accurate description of Montage of a Dream Deferred, which Hughes preferred to think of as a single, book-length poem.

While white Americans were riding a wave of post- World War II prosperity toward the fulfillment of their vision of the American dream, most blacks were left waiting for their opportunity to join in the country's success.Ī montage is an artistic work that consists of smaller pieces of art combined into a unified whole that reveals a larger picture or meaning.

Although slavery was abolished nearly a century before, black Americans in the 1940s and 1950s were still not seen as equals in the eyes of the general public nor, often, in the eyes of local and state lawmakers. In this tightly interwoven collection, the 'dream deferred' is the collective dream of the African Americans. 'What happens to a dream deferred?' That question-one of the most famous lines of poetry to issue from the pen of an American writer-captures the essence of Langston Hughes's 1951 work Montage of a Dream Deferred. Montage of a Dream Deferred LANGSTON HUGHES 1951 INTRODUCTION PLOT SUMMARY THEMES HISTORICAL OVERVIEW CRITICAL OVERVIEW CRITICISM SOURCES INTRODUCTION

What happens to a dream deferred quote