#11 Dream Deferred

"Dream Deferred" was full of figurative language! Most of the comparisons are similes, but there is a metaphor that cause quite a bang at the end. The purpose of the figurative language is to make the author's point as clear as possible in each way. The first simile, "does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?," compares the speaker's dream to a raisin that has become smaller and smaller until it shrivels up, without much life and meaning. The next is "festers like a sore." This simile was the saddest to me because dreams are supposed to drive you and make you happy, but in this case it is causing the speaker pain and is infecting him. Does the dream "stink like rotten meat" is also quite descriptive because it is describing the dream as old and the chance has been lost and finally, "crust and sugars over." This was the hardest for me to understand because sugar usually has a positive connotation for me, especially chocolate. This shows that the dream comes back to bite you because it seemed better than it really is and has become sickly sweet and overpowering; it acts as a barrier between the speaker and moving on with his life. Finally, OR DOES IT EXPLODE is a metaphor. I think the speaker left this example of figurative language for last because it is the most destructive. I think the author left it until last also because he thought that this is the course that his dream would take.