Dream Deferred

"What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?" - Langston Hughes

This poem was definitely the most interesting to me probably because I can relate to it a lot.  I will get into that more here in a second, though.  First of all, this poem is made up almost completely of rhetorical questions and similes.  These rhetorical questions, like the ones above, are meant to get the reader to think deeply and to provoke thought.  The similes are meant to create an image in the reader's mind, pulling the reader closer to the words.   For example, hearing these similes made me relate the poem to my own life.  My most important dream right now is to go to a university where I can compete college gymnastics and still get a wonderful education.  As I read the lines, "Or fester like a sore--And then run?" I got the image of the sores I get on my hands from swinging on the bars during practice.  I also got the image of running down the runway to do a vault.  How would it feel if all the pain and hard work I put in to this sport was for nothing and I didn't get to compete in college?  This is the question I asked myself immediately after reading this poem.  I don't think these words were meant to be taken literally as I took them, but the effect was still there.