Omar Hegazy

E1FC

What themes are the two poems America by Claude McKay and Harlem (A Dream Deferred) by Langston Hughes addressing; and how do the poets address them differently? Unless the theme youre looking for here is the way both poets rhyme (which its most likely not), the common theme expressed in both of these poems is the constant figurative depiction of the topic at hand. For example, in America, McKay shows America as a vigorous tiger that has imprisoned her and taken her over, but yet she loves it. In A Dream Deferred, Hughes questions the states of a crushed dream and personifies the meaning of a destroyed hope. He uses similes to detail the dream; for example, sags like a heavy load or dry up likea raisin in the sun. The way they do this differently is that McKays figurative expressions are more varying and they flow through the poem more neatly. Instead of just sharply using similes and the word like to express figurative emotion, McKay puts her expressions and personifications throughout the poem: her bigness sweeps my being like a flood, or and sinks into my throat her tigers tooth, or perhaps and see her might and granite wonders there. However, Hughes has short, staccato one-liner questions that start with a reasonable inquiry and end with the surprising figurative expression. Most of his lines go in the same structure as Does it X, or is it Y like a Z? For example, Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar overlike a syrupy sweet?