Dreams

Author's Note: " I wrote this piece to demonstrate and  prove my knowledge of being able to identify figurative language in a poem. I would like this piece to get scored on the reading rubric for Word Choice and Context Analysis. This piece is written about Langston Hughes poem "Dreams."

Dreams

By Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Figurative language is used very frequently in poetry and literature.  The use of similes, metaphors, personification and all other types of figurative language give the reader a better understanding of characters and settings described by the author. Also, the very detailed, creative, and vivid language add more depth and makes the piece sounds more sophisticated than regular writing. Langston Hughes does a really great job of using figurative language and adding emotion in his pieces and because of this his poetry and short stories are very impressive. In Langston Hughes poem "Dreams" he uses two different types of figurative language and even though the poem is only two stanzas in length it has an extremely large amount of depth.

In the two short stanzas of Langston Hughes poem "Dreams" he uses two different types of figurative language. The first type of figurative language that he uses in this poem is personification. For example in the first line Langston wrote, "Hold fast to dreams," which is personification because you cannot actually hold dreams. Another piece of figurative language Langston Hughes uses are two metaphors in this short but lovely poem.  The first metaphor he uses is, "For if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly," and the second metaphor that he uses in this poem is, "For when dreams go life is a barren field frozen with snow." Langston Hughes uses two different types of metaphors in his poem "Dreams."

Although the figurative language in this poem help make it sound very mature and sophisticated another thing that makes this poem so good is the depth that Langston Hughes uses in the poem. I feel like what he is trying to say in this piece is that dreams give you innocence and imagination and challenge you to think outside the box and that once you loose that innocence you loose your dreams. Also I think that he is trying to hint on that you should never stop chasing your dreams because once you give up on your dreams you will realize how bare your life is, sort of like the barren field of snow described in the poem. Lastly I think one of the messages in this poem is that you should never stop dreaming because if you stop dreaming you will have nothing to live for. I think that in the poem "Dreams" by Langston Hughes the author uses a lot of depth and overall has many morals and messages behind it.

Even though the depth of the poem was very powerful another aspect of this poem that was affected by figurative language was the tone of the piece. The tone in “Dreams” makes readers feel sad and a little depressed because of the way he uses his two metaphors in this piece. The metaphors add a very sad tone because of how he compares life without dreams to a broken-winged bird or a barren field frozen with snow. By saying that he is trying to have you recognize how useless life would be without goals and dreams. I believe Langston Hughes compared life without dreams to those two things because he wants people to know how sad and useless life would be without goals or dreams. I believe that the tone in "Dreams" by Langston Hughes is changed and affected by the figurative language used within the poem. 

In the poem "Dreams" which was written by Langston Hughes the author uses depth and figurative language to make to poem sound more mature. There are many life lessons and advice that are expressed throughout this piece. Everyone should read this poem and stop and think for a second about the messages behind it because you can really learn a lot of good advice from this poem.