On The American Dream In Langston Hughes's Montage Of A Dream Deferred

Historians and sociologists have different viewpoints about American Dream, so do the diverse Americans. Langston Hughes, a black poet of the twentieth century, possesses the original opinion of what the American Dream is. This thesis probes into the American Dream in Montage of a Dream Deferred . It consists of three parts as follows: the reality of the black's American Dream, the presentation of the black's American Dream, and the essence of it.Chapter One analyzes the conditions of the black people in post-World War II Harlem, focusing on his poetry collection "Montage of a Dream Deferred", whose theme is the black's American Dream. In this collection, Hughes tries to explain and illuminate the black's conditions in America, the disillusion of the black and their hopes.Chapter Two probes into the form of the black's American Dream—the blues. The blues is melancholy and the expression of the hopeless feelings of the black oppressed; it reflects their despondency and disillusionment. At the same time the blues is "merry". For the black, if they do not have any happy moment, they will have to die. So in order to live on they have to create their own music form to enjoy. Imitating the tonality of the blues, Hughes catches hold of the characteristics of such inconsistent emotions. From the view of the blues structure, not only does he copy the refrain of lyrics, but he also imitates the structure of the blues in his poems.In Chapter Three, from the angle of the black aesthetics, this thesis analyses the essence of the American Dream in Hughes's poetry—the black's American Dream is deferred and melancholy and hopeful. To sum up, the thesis probes into the theme of the black's American Dream in Montage of a Dream Deferred from the content of Hughes's poetry and the form used in his poems. It indicates that through the transplant of the black music, Hughes shows the real existence of the black's American Dream deferred, their repression and their feelings. In the poem "Dream Variations", he expresses the idea that the black have their ideals and are consistently trying their best to seek for the realization of their dreams.