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Hughes’s references to the dream run like a leitmotif (a recurring idea) through the poem. It is announced in Line 2, about America: “Let it be the dream it used to be.” This is echoed in Line 6: “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed.” Many of the dreamers were immigrants who “dreamt our basic dream” (Line 39) while still in the Old World and were inspired to come to America, the new land that was being built (and dreamed). The emphasis of the dream is the hope for freedom and prosperity; it is a “mighty dream” (Line 69) that lives on in the nation’s psyche and must be revived.
Although Hughes does not actually put the two words directly together, he is referring to the American dream. This is a term that only came into common usage in 1931, after it appeared in the work of an American historian named James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. However, the American dream can really be traced back to the nation’s founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, in which humankind’s “unalienable rights” are declared to be “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
By Langston Hughes
Children’s Rhymes
Langston Hughes
Cora Unashamed
Langston Hughes
Dreams
Langston Hughes
Harlem
Langston Hughes
I look at the world
Langston Hughes
I, Too
Langston Hughes
Me and the Mule
Langston Hughes
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
Mulatto
Langston Hughes
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Not Without Laughter
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Slave on the Block
Langston Hughes
Thank You, M'am
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The Big Sea
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Theme for English B
Langston Hughes
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes
The Ways of White Folks
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes
Tired
Langston Hughes