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Rhetorical Questions

All but one of the sentences in “Harlem” take the form of a rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions aren’t generally meant to be answered. Rather, writers use them to make a point or create a dramatic effect. In this poem, the use of rhetorical questions is notable for two reasons. First, the questions are all parallel, in that they each suggest a possible outcome of deferring a dream. Because they each suggest a possible outcome, each rhetorical question is in fact an answer to the poem’s opening query: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (line 1). The second noteworthy aspect is the way the rhetorical questions build tension for the reader. Over the course of the poem, the speaker introduces several possibilities for what might happen to a deferred dream. But the speaker saves the most extreme possibility for last: “Or does it explode?” (line 11). Aside from being the most extreme possibility, the fact that it’s printed in italics strongly suggests that the speaker considers this to be the likeliest possibility. In effect, then, the speaker uses a series of rhetorical questions to defer revealing what they believe will be the real outcome of deferring a dream.

Parallelism

Parallelism is a term used in literary analysis to describe instances where sequential clauses or sentences employ a similar word order or structure. In the case of “Harlem,” parallelism appears in the way the speaker’s rhetorical questions create a repeating structure. A shorthand for this repeating structure might be as follows: “Does it . . . ? Or . . . ?” That is, each pair of rhetorical questions in the poem follows a pattern where the first one begins with the phrase, “Does it . . . ,” and the second one extends the first by opening with, “Or . . .” To see how this works in context, consider the second stanza (lines 2–8):

     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?

In addition to the repeating pattern of “Does it . . . ? Or . . . ?,” also note how the second rhetorical question includes a secondary qualification that appears on a separate line after a long dash. This repeating structure creates a sense of order, as if the speaker is attempting to present a neat and tidy catalog of possible outcomes of deferring a dream. It is precisely such a notion of orderly rationality that the speaker ultimately undermines when they conclude with a vision of sudden, explosive violence.

Simile

The speaker of “Harlem” introduces several similes over the course of the poem. Notably, each simile appears as a supplement to one of the possible outcomes the speaker describes in response to their opening question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (line 1). The first possibility mentioned by the speaker involves the deferred dream drying up “like a raisin in the sun” (line 3). Subsequent possibilities include festering “like a sore” (line 4), stinking “like rotten meat” (line 6), crusting over “like a syrupy sweet” (line 8), and sagging “like a heavy load” (line 10). Admittedly, none of these examples is what we might typically expect of a simile. The usual definition of simile refers to instances when words such as “like” or “as” are used to make a direct comparison between two distinct people, places, or things. That is, simile is used to compare two nouns. By contrast, the speaker of “Harlem” uses simile to compare a noun to an action—that is, to a verb. To take the first simile as an example, the speaker suggests that a dream deferred might “dry up [verb] / like a raisin [noun]” (lines 2–3). Such similes place an emphasis on dynamics rather than physical properties.

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