`DREAM BOOGIE` BY LANGSTON HUGHES

In Dream Boogie ' Hughes writes about the frustrated African-American dream of self-creation and self-expression . The dream is deferred (line 4 ) --- that is , it is not allowed to materialize . Also evident is the sense of psychological homelessness --- the African-American individual , unable to find a cultural and psychological reference appears to wander aimlessly in an unforgiving society that shuns him or her out

The dream , though thwarted , is not entirely gone . It continues to rumble (3 ) at least in the inner recesses of the African- American consciousness . It screams for space and

definition , pushing to be liberated and manifested to the larger society of blacks and whites alike . The suppressed yet undying dream is akin to anger and discontent The individual 's placid fazade conceals raw disquiet underneath . Hughes writes : Listen closely / You 'll hear their feet / beating and beating out (5-9

The rest of the statement is also thwarted . The persona is cut short by Daddy (1 ) a symbolism that cuts both ways . He could be an emblem of the white patron (remember that Hughes , along with other of the Harlem Renaissance , relied on the financial support of white patrons to pursue their art ) whose support for African-American artistic expression is nearly always coupled with ideological regulation . On the one hand Daddy ' could be a black figure himself , the happy darky

Either case , the presence of Daddy ' is a regulating agent . He compels the persona to conform to prevailing ideology . He becomes a medium of escape from the people 's social plight into the artificial yet comfortable world of indifference and forgetting . When he asks the persona What did (you ) say (14 ) there is an attempt by him to de-familiarize the all too obvious truth and distance himself from it Consequently , the persona 's words Sure / I 'm happy (15-16 ) bear a touch of irony and unwilling submission in them

Works Cited

Hughes , Langston . Dream Boogie ' 2005 . Big Apple History . 13 Nov 2007

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