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Langston Hughes often wrote about the struggles of black people, slavery, thwarted dreams, and racism. "Harlem" speaks out like a rearing thunderstorm. Black people were taught not to dream. Dreams were figments of their imaginations that no matter how hard they wished things would change. The poem is sad, which is a reality in those days because dreaming was for fools if you were black. Misery and pain were filled in the heads and hearts of many blacks and dreams were a way of escaping reality. The questions in this poem reflect a person whose reality is that dreams are always thwarted, like most of Hughes poetry. "Harlem" is a reflection of the life of black people when dreams were a joke. Happiness and aspirations were things that black people couldn't experience. What happened to a dream deferred? The poem expresses that, "it dries up like a raisin in the sun, it withers and dies and reflects a state of misery than happiness".