Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes, born in 1902, in Joplin Missouri, in the middle of a segregated country that allowed its African-American population to develop up to a certain level, never above the lowest of the white classes, even in the happiest of cases. He wrote his poetry like a man who was proud to express his African-American descent and was the first to introduce the music rhythms of his African ancestry along with those of his American more recent cultural identity into the poetry he wrote.

Langston Hughes poem "Dream Variations," written in the form of a stanza, expresses the dream of a whole population caught under the merciless and implacable laws of discrimination based on the color of its skin. Dreaming of being completely free is a constant of the human race and the humanity in those often treated as sub-humans by their fellow countrymen is reaffirmed in this poem, as a common thread.

Another unique feature of our humanity is music and dance and the Africans have their own distinctive style of expressing themselves when dancing. The African-Americans have taken their ancestor's love for music and dance and blended it into their religious experiences and their expression of grief or joy, marking the birth of a new identity. The author of this poem appears to aspire to a complete liberation from any temporal or special restriction. All he requires if the freedom to dance in the sun and a tall slim tree to sleep under.