SOURCE: “Ben Franklin in Harlem: The Drama of Deferral in Ann Petry's The Street,” in Deferring a Dream: Literary Sub-Versions of the American Columbiad, Gert Buelens, Ernst Rudin, 1994, pp. 1–23.

In the following essay, Wurst shows that Lutie, the protagonist of The Street, is doomed to failure when she tries to model herself on Benjamin Franklin, a white male with very different cultural values and expectations.

Harlem

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? 

(268)

Referring to these famous lines from Montage of a Dream Deferred, Langston Hughes's biographer, Arnold Rampersad, evokes the “heightened sense of the futility of Harlem dreams” which Hughes's poem powerfully conveys...