What happens to a dream deferred?
A title I didn’t truly understand
In our high school English class we read Lorraine Hansberry‘s 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun. Growing up in 1990’s small-town Iowa, it was one of my first personal encounters with African-American culture and I am grateful that we had a chance to both read the words for ourselves and see them performed on screen in the 1961 movie. Unfortunately, I never fully internalized the reason for Hansberry’s title.
Although I knew abstractly that A Raisin in the Sun came from a poem by Langston Hughes, for whatever reason I do not recall actually reading Hughes’ poem Harlem. This gap in my understanding came rushing back to me when I started reading Rabbi Harold Kushner’s Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. Kushner begins chapter one with the first two lines of Harlem:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Harlem, Langston Hughes, 1951
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Using Hughes’ work as a jumping off point to talk about Moses’ life and ministry, Rabbi Kushner makes the point that no human being’s life is going to turn out the way they expect. We are always going to be disappointed. Life, finances, health, and other circumstances are always going to intervene. The question for him is not whether we are going to experience dreams deferred, the question is what we do when it happens.
Three responses to deferred dreams
Kushner says he often encounters three responses to deferred dreams:
- Those who dream boldly even as they realize a lot of their dreams will not come true.
- Those who dream more modestly and fear that even their modest dreams may not be realized.
- Those who are afraid to dream at all, lest they be disappointed.
As much as I would like to claim that I am the kind of person who dreams boldly while living my life in category one, that would be untrue. Although most children start with exquisite fantasies of what they want to be when they grow up, as they mature that grandiosity is slowly beaten out of them (sometimes even by well-meaning parents and teachers) and they more more “realistically” resign themselves to a category two level imagination.
Category two is where I have lived most of the past few decades of my life. On my good days, I remember what category one was like and try desperately to recreate the hopefulness that level of imaginative freedom provided. Unfortunately, to no avail. No matter how hard I work reality eventually creeps back in and fear overwhelms my ability to dream. In those moments I slip even further down and crash into category three. Experiences of trauma and seasons of loss keep me there. Those tragic moments leave me unable to even dream of a situation different from the frustration in which I find myself.
The fear of dreams
Rabbi Kushner uses the story of Moses and the nation of Israel to remind his readers that some people live their entire lives in categories two or three. While Moses experienced moments of category two disappointment, the Hebrews had been enslaved for so long that it took generations to even learn how to dream of a new future. Category three had been their reality for so long that the predictability of enslavement was seemingly preferable to the uncertain hope of a life of freedom.
Likewise, in today’s world groups who have endured generations of racism, misogyny, or homophobia might also find themselves unable to dream. On an individual level, those who have experienced abuse, homelessness, addiction, violence, a health crisis, or economic turmoil can become trapped in a seemingly hopeless situation. This is precisely the reality which Langston Hughes was addressing
Harlem, 1951, by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?The powerful imagery of this poem perfectly captured the purpose of Kushner’s book for me. He addresses the reality of grief, disappointment, and tragedy head on giving his readers the tools to ever-so-slowly begin to dream again.
Today’s Prayer:
Today I am grateful for the witness of writers like Langston Hughes and Rabbi Harold Kushner for both naming and combating the way human beings dry up in the hot sun of tragedy, grief, and anger. Too many people have been sadly left to fester for too long. I pray that our world begins to dream of ways to support those who are sagging under the heavy load of violence, injustice, and bigotry before we all explode.
